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STORIES 

X 

v» 

OF ' / 

t 

Danger and Adventure 


BY 


FREDERICK SCHWATKA, ROSE G. KINGSLEY, 

M " 

B. P. SHILLABER, AND OTPIERS 


CllustratetJ 



BOSTON 

D. LOTHROP AND COMPANY 

32 Franklin Street 



Copyright, 1886, 
b/ 

D. LoTHROI* V COMTANY. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Breaking up of the Ice Bridge 7 

By Evuna IV. Demeritt. 

A King’s Bed 20 

By Mrs. Carolhie Atwater Mason. 

Ahmow’s Fight with the Wolves 35 

By Frederick Schwatka. 

Stoned by a Mountain 47 

By Rose G. Kingsley. 

I.iTTLE Captain” of Buckskin Camp 62 

By F. L. S tea ley. 

The Rubber Baby 76 

By Lizzie IV. Champney. 

A Ride on a Centaur 94 

By Hamilto7t IV. Maine. 

SpME Bad Boys of Bybury 106 

By A. B. II. 

Miss Violet iiS 

By N'ora Perry. 

Jim’s Troubles 137 

By Grandjnere Jtdie. 

Polly’s Temptation 157 

By A. A. II. 


CONTENTS. 


A Wonderful Trio . 170 

By Jane Howard. 

Prying Lizzie 190 

By D. C. McDonald. 

Only Fifteen 200 

By Mrs. Mary A. Parsons. 

Lily on the Plains 21 1 

By Margaret LeBoutillier. 

Number Nine 229 

By Belle Shic A. 

The Secret of the Trees 240 

By Lucy Lincoln Montgomery. 

Tib’s Cap 262 

By Erskine M. Hamilton. 

The Boy Chicken 281 

By Garry Gaines. 

Prouty’s Fortune 289 

By Theodora R.Jeiuiess. 

Left-handed I.uck 299 

By Louise Stockton. 

'I'husie’s Fourth of July 313 

By H. M. S. 

Cubby’s Shirts 330 

• • By Mrs. Annie A. Preston. 

An Uninvited Guest 348 

By B. P. Shillaber. 

Capt. James B. Eads 357 

By Charles E, Bolton, 


THE BREAKING-UP OF THE 
ICE BRIDGE. 



MONG the inhabitants of one of the little fish- 


ing villages on the south shore of the St. 
Lawrence river, was a thrifty French Canadian 
named Pierre Laval. His family consisted of his 
rosy-cheeked, good-natured wife, Louise the eldest 
child, from her womanly ways nicknamed “ the little 
mother,” Jean, a strong lad of thirteen, and the 
baby, whose bright black eyes and white skin made 
one think of two huckleberries in a bowl of milk. 

In summer there was no more attractive spot in 
N. than the cosey Laval cottage, with its porch 
wreathed with honeysuckle, and its little plot of 
ground gay with beds and borders of bright-tinted 
flowers ; and in winter the pantry was always well 
filled, and the wood-shed piled to the very rafters 


8 IHE BREAKING-UP OF THE ICE BRIDGE. 

with great logs ; for Pierre was a good provider, and 
by working hard at fishing during the summer months 
and at lumbering in winter, he managed to earn con- 
siderable money, and instead of spending it at the 
village inn, he carried it home for the use of his wife 
and little ones. 

On the afternoon of a certain cloudy day, the door 
of the Laval cottage opened every few moments, and 
Louise peered anxiously down the road. At last 
she spied the stout figure of Jean coming up the 
street, and drawing her little red shawl tightly over 
her head, she ran to meet him. 

“ Hurrah, Lou ! ” he cried gayly ; ‘‘ the boat is 
almost done, and the boys are going to let me have 
the naming of it. I think I shall call it ‘ The 
Louise.’ ” 

But the girl did not seem to hear. “ Oh, hurr}', 
Jean !” she gasped, pressing her hands together 
nervously ; “ the baby ! ” 

Then Jean, for the first time, noticed how pale and 
anxious his sister’s face was. 

“ Well, what of the baby ? ” he asked. 

“ Sick, oh, so sick ! he never was like this before.” 



\ 


HOLD FAST TO ME, l,OUISE. HE SAID 







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THE BREAKING-UP OF THE ICE BRIDGE. 


IT 


“ And you wanted me to go on some errand. I 
am sorry now that I staid all night, but mother said 
I might if the boys wanted me.” 

“Your staying was all right, Jean, only everything 
has gone wrong this time. Word came this morning 
that a gang of men was wanted at the big lumber- 
yard, and father and the neighbors went away early 
and will not be back before the end of the week.” 

“ But where’s Mother Barbet ? Can’t she cure the 
baby ? ” 

Louise shook her head sadly. “ For once, Jean, 
her medicine don’t seem to do any good ; but she 
says she has been with the great doctor over the river 
two or three times when he has had throats even 
worse than the baby’s, and that he uses a new kind 
of medicine — a little white powder — and it always 
helps people right off. He gave her the name of the 
powder, but I couldn’t find it at the little shop in the 
village, and mother didn’t dare trust me to go across 
the river with Jet. He hasn’t been out of the stable 
for four or five days, and he is as wild as a wolf.” 

N. was too small a town to be able to afford 
the luxury of a physician all for itself ; besides, the 


12 


THE BREAKING-UP OF THE ICE BRIDGE. 


people took so much exercise in the open air, and 
ate such simple food, and kept such early hours and 
were so strong and healthy, that a doctor would have 
found but little to do. In cases of severe sickness 
the people of N. always sent for the learned phy- 
sician across the river ; but on all ordinary occa- 
sions they depended entirely on “old Mother Bar- 
bet,” the fame of whose skilful nursing and simple 
remedies had spread far and wide. 

It was toward the close of the long and bitter Ca- 
nadian winter. Already, in some localities, little 
shallow pools of water standing here and there on 
the frozen surface of the St. Lawrence river showed 
that the sun was getting back some of its summer 
heat and power; and the inhabitants along the 
shores prophesied the speedy breaking-up of the ice, 
the clearing of the river, and the re-appearance of the 
long procession of stately ships sailing by op their 
way to Montreal. But as yet not a crack had disfig- 
ured the glittering mass of ice which for two months 
had stretched out as level as a floor, making a firm, 
safe bridge between the little .village on the south 
shore and the large town of V. If the peo- 


THE BREAKING-UP OF THE ICE BRIDGE. 1.3 

pie of the little village wanted anything from the 
large town, all they had to do was to harness their 
horses, and “ whiz ” across the ice and back again in 
a few moments. It was a thousand times better 

I 

than the slow, unreliable summer ferry ; and too, 
during the clear, calm moonlight nights, you could 
hear the tinkling of the bells and the sounds of gay 
laughter as one sleigh-load after another of young 
people sped over the ice, bent on some merry-mak- 
ing or frolic. 

As Jean and Louise entered the cottage, their 
mother met them with a sober face. How still and 
lonesome it seemed without the bright baby, who 
always laughed and put out his little hands the 
moment the big brother came in sight! Jean felt 
conscience-smitten when he remembered how often 
he had said, “ Bother take the baby I ” when his 
mother had left the little fellow in his charge for a 
few moments. In fact, it was but two or three days 
since he had been wicked enough to wish the baby 
dead, when he had been called in from play to rock 
the cradle. And hadn’t the good priest told the boys 
of the parish school only that very week, “that a 


THE BREAKING-UP OF THE ICE BRIDGE. 


H 

murderous thought was almost as bad in the eyes of 
God as a murderous blow.” If the baby should die 
— the boy’s he.art gave a great thump as he thought 
of it, — how could he, Jean Laval, ever look any one 
in the face again ! 

“Take courage, mother,” he said bravely. “I’ll 
harness Jet, and have him at the door in a moment.” 

Mrs. Laval wiped her eyes with the corner of her 
apron and looked anxiously out of the window. “ Are 
you sure it is safe to cross, my son ? I don’t like the 
looks of that sky, and the weather has been warmer 
lately, and there have been signs of the breaking-up 
of the ice above us.” 

“ But, that was far up the river ; and as for the 
clouds, they do look pretty squally, that’s a fact ; but 
we shall be back long before the storm breaks.” 

“Louise knows what touted the doctor. If he 
shouldn’t be home, leave word for him to come as 
soon as possible, and then hurry to the drug-store 
and get the powder, and be sure and buy a double 
portion for Mother Barbet. She is coming to stay 
with me while you. are away. Yes, I suppose it is 
best to go.” 


THE BREAKiNG-UP OF THE ICE BRIDGE. 


1 5 


In a few moments Jean and Louise were snugly 
tucked inside the little sledge under the warm wolf- 
skins, and the black pony with his head down, going 
at his best pace, brought them in a short time to the 
river’s edge. The ice was soon crossed, and after a 
short drive up the main street of the large town Jean 
pulled up in front of the doctor’s office. Finding 
him out, he scrawled a message on the slate, and 
stopping at the drug-store he bought two bottles 
of the white powder, which he carefiHly placed in 
his inside coat-pocket ; and then they started for home. 

“ How dark it has grown ! ” exclaimed Louise as 
they reached the crossing-place and saw a crowd of 
men , standing looking out on the frozen river and 
gesticulating earnestly; “and that sky, Jean! it 
frightens me to look at it.” She pointed to a writhing 
mass of huge inky clouds rapidly climbing up from 
the horizon. The wind, which had been blowing 
steadily all day, had entirely died away, leaving a 
stillness which was almost oppressive. This omin- 
ous silence was broken only by an occasional moan- 
ing which seemed to vibrate along the frozen surface 
of the river. 


i6 THE BREAKING-UP OF THE ICE BRIDGE. 

As the black pony stepped out upon the ice, some 
men motioned Jean back ; and finding him determined 
to go on, two or three of them sprang forward and 
seized the bridle. “ You’re young, my master, but 
you’re old enough to know better than to venture 
across in the face of such a sky as that. And haven’t 
you heard the news from up the river ? the ice has 
already weakened in spots ! ” 

“ Let go ! ” said Jean, tightening his hold on the 
reins. Weak'ice or not, I must cross.” 

But several other men had gathered in fro- of the 
pony. “ Back, back, I say ! ” shouted one. “ We 
have had orders to stop people from crossing ; but in 
truth, I didn’t think there would be man or boy fool 
enough to attempt it. Don’t you know the meaning 
of those clouds ? The tornado may be on us at any 
time — even now while we are talking.” 

“ But I tell you I must cross, and you have no 
right to keep me here losing time,” returned Jean, 
flushing angrily, while Louise turned her face im- 
ploringly toward the men. 

“ We must try to cross,” she said with trembling 
lips. “ My little brother is sick — perhaps dying ; 


THE BREAKING-UP OF THE ICE BRIDGE. 


^7 


vve have been for the doctor and are taking back the 
medicine. Father is away, and mother is waiting for 
us.” 

The men looked irresolute. “ Better to lose one 
child than three^' said the first speaker, still keeping- 
hold of the bridle. 

“Let the youngsters go, neighbor Tyrrel,” ex- 
claimed a new-comer. “ It is Pierre LavaPs pony, 
the best traveller about N. Perhaps he can get 
them across before the storm bursts. Think of your 
own wife left alone with a dying baby, and waiting 
for medicine. Spare not the whip my boy, and may 
the good God put such speed in your pony’s legs as 
never was there before ! ” 

Jet, glad to be released, darted forward on his way. 
The same oppressive stillness continued, still the 
black clouds mounted higher and higher, and there 
was the same peculiar moaning in the ice beneath. 
The children had already crossed more than two- 
thirds of the distance, when there came a little puff 
of wind, followed by two or three violent gusts which 
caused the light sledge to swerve to one side. The 
next moment, there was a heavy boom in the ice 


I§ THE BREAKING UP OF THE ICE BRIDGE. 

directly underneath them, and the air was filled with 
a succession of sharp reports like the rattling of 
musketry. 

Louise, too frightened to speak, turned and looked 
in her brother’s face, but she found little there to 
re-assure her. His eyes were riveted on a large crack 
in the ice before them through which could be seen 
the dark waters of the swiftly moving current. Obey- 
ing the sudden sting of the whip, the pony gathered 
himself for a spring and cleared the crack just as it 
widened to an impassable chasm behind them. A 
second crack was crossed in the same manner, and 
then Jean saw that their floating platform was sur- 
rounded on all sides by water. “ We must leave the 
sleigh, Louise,” he said. “ It will be safer lying flat 
on the ice.” He took his knife and cut the pony 
loose from the sledge. “ It is only fair to give poor 
Jet a chance for his life,” he muttered ; and then 
seizing his sister by the hand, he dragged her to the 
strongest part of the floe just as it parted in the 
middle with a sudden snap. 

The little red sledge slipped into the water, and 
the pony, neighing piteously, drifted rapidly from 


THE BREAKING-UP OF THE ICE BRIDGE. 


19 


their sight. Jean heard the shouting of voices, and 
through the driving rain he was able to make out the 
figures of men on shore running to and fro. “ Hold 
fast to me, Louise,” he said, as she gave a little gasp 
when the floe tilted to one side and the icy waves 
dashed over their faces ; “ we are nearing the sta- 
tionary ice by the shore. If you can but hold out 
for a moment longer ! ” 

The next instant the huge blocks of ice, as they 
came crashing down the river, forced the little floe on 
the firm ice, and strong arms carried the children to 
a place of safety. 

The doctor was not able to cross the river for some 
time ; but the white powder saved the baby’s life, and 
the little fellow was crowing and laughing as usual 
several days before Jean and Louise recovered from 
the effects of the cold and the fright. 

The morning after the rescue of the two children, 
the black pony, with his shaggy mane and tail fringed 
with icicles, was found alive and well on a little cape 
where he had safely drifted ashore. 


A KING’S BED. 



the curious old city of N , lives a little girl named 


20 


A king’s bed. 


21 


Barbara. Barbara is six years old and has flaxen braids, 
a round rosy face, and goes to school with a little 
linen knapsack slung over her shoulder, as other Ger- 
man children do. But I am going to tell you of 
something which happened to Barbara which perhaps 
never happened to any little German child before. 

It was a Saturday afternoon in spring when the 
apple-trees were covered with pink and white blos- 
soms, and the robins were flying through the sunny 
air with a great deal to tell each other of good situa- 
tions for nest-building. Barbara’s mother said to her 
that Saturday afternoon ; “ Thou canst go, little 
daughter, to thy aunt Marie in Castle street ; thou 
hast been a good girl and taken care of Gretel all the 
morning. Brush thy hair, and make thy hands clean. 

^ ^ ^ So — that is my tidy Barbara. Tell auntie I 
send her my hearty greeting, and will come with the 
father to-morrow. Give me a kiss — there, run along, 
and be a good girl.” 

So Barbara took her dear, battered doll, Minni, 
from the corner, and in her best blue dress, with a 
little white cap tied over her flaxen braids, trotted off 
through the narrow? crooked streets, 


22 


A king’s bed. 


Castle street is so called because it leads up to the 
old, gray, thick-walled castle which belongs to the 
king of that country, although he does not live in it 
now, having so many other palaces newer and hand- 
somer. At the head of the steep street stands the 
great arched gateway leading into the castle court- 
yard, and little Barbara fully believed that gate was 
the entrance into fairy-land. It was her dearest wish 
to go inside that charmed gateway, and her aunt had 
promised to take her ; but the day had never come. 

Barbara found that aunt Marie was gone to market ; 
so she went out to play on the sidewalk, taking Minni 
with her. As usual she strayed up to the castle gate, 
and stood gazing with wonder and admiration at the 
lions carved in stone on either side. Presently a 
gentleman with two ladies came up to the gate. The 
gentleman held a book with red covers open in his 
hand and read something aloud from it to which the 
ladies listened, and then they all looked attentively 
at the gate. Barbara could not understand a word 
that the gentleman said, for he spoke English ; but 
she saw that these people were going into her fairy- 
land, and without waiting to think what her mother 


A king’s bed. 


23 


would say, she followed them into the court-yard. 

An old woman, whose husband was steward of the 
castle, soon came to show the party around, and our 
little Barbara trotted demurely after, holding fast to 
her beloved Minni. After walking through long pas- 
sages and mounting a wide stone staircase, the old 
woman led them into a suite of very grand rooms, with 
richly carved ceilings, highly polished floors and 
faded but handsome furniture. One of these was a 
bedroom ; and Barbara stared with great round eyes 
at the magnificent canopy and curtains, with a gilded 
crown at the top, and the crimson velvet coverlet 
heavy with gold embroidery. 

No one seemed to notice the little waif, and she 
became quite at ease and wandered around with a 
wise little look on her face as if she were quite in the 
habit of visiting royal palaces. On the bedroom wall 
hung a portrait of the old king, Frederick Barbarossa, 
in shining armor, with a tremendous sword in his 
hand. Barbara stopped to look at it, but the stern 
eyes seemed to stare straight at her, and she turned 
away, half-frightened, clasping Minni closer. She 
found that the others had now gone out on to a bal- 


24 


A king’s bed. 


cony from which there was a wide view, and she has- 
tened after them. 

These people seemed to be delighted with the out- 
look over hills and valleys and villages, but little Bar- 
bara soon found something far more to her taste. It 
was the castle moat. In the old, old times when men 
built a castle they made a very wide ditch around it, as 
wide as a broad street sometimes, and the sides of it 
were like a stone wall. This was filled with water, and 
the only way for friend or foe to cross it was by a draw- 
bridge — a bridge which could be drawn back when- 
ever the lord of the castle pleased.. So when enemies 
came, trying to enter the castle, the drawbridge would 
be lifted, and they could not cross the moat. There 

is such a moat around this old castle of N ; but 

as there was no longer any need of using it to keep 
away the enemies of the king, the water was long 
ago drained off, and the moat turned into a garden. 

Barbara, at one end of the long balcony, looked 
between the rails down into the moat just below; it 
was full of blossoming apple-trees, and the flower-beds 
were gay with tulips and hyacinths. In one of the 
paths a dog and a cat were having a grand frolic, and 


UTTLE EARUARA ENTERS FAIRY-LAND AT LAST 






'a king’s bed. 


27 

this scene interested Barbara more than the fine 
prospect. 

It was so funny to see the kitten, which from that 
distance looked such a mite of a thing, box the ears 
of the great dog, then whisk madly around after 
her tail half a dozen times ; make a wild dash with 
her paws at the petals falling from the apple blossoms, 
and then spring back to her playfellow. These 
capers and many others were repeated over and over 
to Barbara’s great delight, and she had entirely for- 
gotten where she w^as, when, at last, the dog, tired of 
nonsense, rose, walked gravely off and disappeared ; 
and the kitten, after scrambling wildly up the stem of 
a tree, soon followed. Barbara watched a moment 
to see if they would not return ; but they did not, so 
she went back through the window into the room she 
had left. She was a little frightened to find no one 
in it, and she hurried on through room after room 
to the great door which opened upon tl>e corridor. 

But when she had clasped the huge brass knob in 
her two little hands, and turned it around, and pulled 
with all her might, the heavy door was not stirred, for 
it was locked, 


28 


A KING S BED. 


Then Barbara knew that all the people had for- 
gotten her, and that she was locked up in those great 
gloomy rooms for the night, unless she could make 
somebody hear her. 

She pounded with her tiny fists upon the door, and 
called Komm ! Ko77im at the top of her voice; 
but the sound was lost, and could not pierce the 
thick walls and door. 

The hot tears chased each other down her cheeks, 
as she looked down at her little self, and then around 
the cold, stately room. She felt so utterly forsaken, 
so frightened by all the strangeness and loneliness, 
that I think the poor little thing might have lost her 
senses if she had not at that moment caught sight of 
Minni lying on the floor, lonely like herself. 

She snatched her dolly up and hugged the dear, 
stiff thing to her breast ; and a feeling of having to 
take care of Minni that came up in her motherly, 
loving little heart, made her less lonely and afraid. 
She walked back over the slippery, polished floors, 
passing the great picture of Barbarossa with only one 
. frightened glance, and went out again upon the bal- 
cony. The cat and the dog had come back again, 


A king’s bed. 


^9 


and some children were playing with them now. 
Barbara called and called to them as loud as she 
could call, hoping they would look up and see her ; 
but the little childish voice did not reach them, and 
they never looked up in that direction. 

So she gave up calling, and sitting down on the 
floor of the balcony, watched the children through the 
railing, and played and talked with Minni in a happy 
little fashion of her own, until the sun set and the air 
began to grow chilly. The children were called into 
a small house by their mother to their evening meal, 
and poor little Barbara began to be very hungry and 
to wonder what they were doing at home. 

At first she hoped they would try and find her ; but 
she soon reflected that her auntie so often kept her 
over night that her mother would not be anxious at 
her absence, and old Lieschen at aunt Marie’s would 
probably think she had gone home again. 

She was cold now, so she went back into the royal 
bed-chamber, and stood looking out of the window, 
watching the lights come out all over the city, and 
thinking now this one, now that one, was perhaps 
shining out of their own warm, cosey sitting room. 


A KlNG^S BED. 


In a chimney that stood up very dark against the pale 
evening sky there was a stork’s nest, and Barbara could 
see an old stork standing beside it, his head on one 
side and one foot lifted. She told Minni about it, 
and tried to make the doll see it ; and all the time 
she was choking down her tears. 

Soon her eyes grew very heavy, and she knew that 
it must be bed-time. She went and stood at the foot 
of the grand royal bed, and looked timidly at its 
heavy curtains. Did she dare to go to sleep there ? 
No ; but where else could she sleep ? It was cold, 
and if she should lie on one of those damask sofas 
there would be nothing with which to cover herself. 
Barbara did not wait long to decide ; she sat down 
on the floor, untied her shoes and pulled them and 
her red stockings off, and then pattered with her little 
bare feet up to the head of the great bed, knelt down 
with folded hands and said “Our Father,” and then 
crept under the velvet, gold-embroidered coverlet, 
and laid her flaxen braids and tear-stained cheek 
upon the pillow which had been pressed only by royal 
heads before — but Barbara did not think about that. 

She hugged Minni very close, but she wished that 


A king’s bed. 


31 

instead of her hard cheek she might feel the soft, warm 
face of her little sister Gretel. Soon, however, all 
her troubles were forgotten and she fell fast asleep. 

After many hours, which seemed to Barbara only a 
few minutes, she thought the great king in the picture 
which hung opposite the bed, stepped down out of 
the frame, and began walking around the room, clank- 
ing his armor with a fearful noise. At first she 
thought she should not be frightened much if he only 
did not fasten those dreadful eyes upon her, and he 
did not ; but suddenly they seemed to rest upon 
something near her, and to her terror she saw that he 
was looking at Minni ! he drew his sword rattling 
from his sheath and began to talk in a loud voice. 

“ Ha ! ” he said. “ Is it so small men have be- 
come } Thou art too small to sleep in a king’s bed. 
Away ! Quickly ! ” And he struck his long sword 
straight into poor Minni’s heart, and then waved her 
to and fro, like a mosquito on the point of a needle. 

“ Oh, don’t ! ” cried Barbara, very earnestly, spring- 
ing towards him. “ Please, please don’t ! All the 
sawdust will come out ! ” But her voice seemed muf- 
fled. The gruff old soldier would not look at her or 


32 


A king’s bed 


listen to her; and sure enough, the sawdust came 
pouring out, and seemed to cover the whole floor. 

“ Now get out ! ” cried the king, “ and wait till thou 
art bigger before thou comest here again ! ” and he 
walked with long strides to the window to throw poor 
Minni out. 

Then Barbara burst off the chain of sleep, screamed 
aloud, and awoke to find herself kneeling on the cold 
floor which was flooded with moonlight. She looked 
up at the picture of the old king. It was there, just 
as she had seen it before dark. Minni was lying very 
straight and very wide awake in the bed. Barbara 
went back, chilled and trembling, and cried herself 
to sleep again. 

Morning came, and the old stewardess with her 
bunch of rattling keys at her waist, and her feather- 
duster in hand, opened the great door, against which 
Barbara’s poor little fists had pounded so helplessly 
the afternoon before, and came in to dust the state 
apartments. What surprise could have been greater 
than hers when, on entering the bed-chamber she saw a 
little girl with a sweet, rosy face, her flaxen hair fly- 
ing all over the pillow, and a battered doll hugged 


A king’s bed. 


"3 

tight in her arms, fast asleep in the royal bed ! The 
good woman clasped her hands, and for a moment 
could not speak for astonishment. 

“ Oh jemini ! Oh je ! Oh my goodness ! Oh thou 
dear Heaven ! Thou blessed babe ! Where did she 
come from?” she exclaimed at last. 

And then she remembered the little flaxen-haired 
girl in the blue dress, whom she had until that mo- 
ment forgotten, who had come in yesterday with the 
American visitors, and then she understood it 
all. 

“ The poor little one,” she thought ; “ a wonder 
that she did not die of fear ! ” Here the good old 
soul began kissing Barbara, who woke up ready to 
cry with bewilderment. But she was soon comforted 
when the stewardess took her down to her own room, 
washed her face and dressed her, and, best of all, gave 
her a good breakfast. When all this was over with, 
Barbara wanted to go home, and hardly waiting to 
say good-by, she snatched up Minni, and ran as 
fast as her little feet could carry her, never stop- 
ping at aunt Marie’s, until she came to her own door. 

‘‘So,” said the mother when Barbara came in. 


34 


A KING S BED. 


“ aunt Marie kept thee all night, dear heart. Hast 
thou been mother’s good girl "i ” 

“ I did not stay at aunt Marie’s,” quoth Barbara. 
“ I stayed all night in the castle of the king, and slept 
in his bed.” 

“ The child has been dreaming,” thought the 
mother, and could not believe it. 


But Barbara knows. 


AHMOW’S FIGHT WITH 
THE WOLVES. 


L ittle AHMOW was an Eskimo boy about 
ten years old, who lived with his parents on 
the bleak shores of northern Hudson’s Bay. 

The Eskimo call themselves Innuits in their own 
language, and the particular tribe to which Ahmow 
belonged were Iwillik Innuits, so called from 
i-wicky the Eskimo for walrus, because they lived 
almost altogether upon walrus. During eight or 
nine months of the year, when the ice is along their 
shores, they hunt and kill the walrus on the outer 
edge of the ice-floe which is the great wide strip of 
ice frozen fast to the shores and held by the islands 
and reefs here and there — or on the ice-pack, 
which is the floating cakes of ice that have broken 
off from the floe during storms. During the short 
Arctic summer of two or three months, when the 
35 


36 AHMOW’S FIGHT WITH THE WOLVES. 

ice is all gone, they hunt them on the islands that 
lie thickly oh the mainland and in the waters near 
them ; for the walrus is a huge animal that loves 
the water and lives in it nearly altogether, leaving 
it only to bask in the sun on a small island or near 
the edge of a cake of ice. 

When a walrus is secured by the Eskimo, its meat 
is sewed up in its own hide, to prevent the dogs 
from eating it up ; and it is a good protection, for 
to bite through the thick. skin is like trying to bite 
through a piece of rubber belting. The walrus oil 
saved — about a barrelful for each animal — was 
formerly sewed up in sealskin bags and covered 
with large stones to protect it from the dogs, wolves, 
and foxes ; but as whalemen have come among 
them, and ships have been wrecked on their ice- 
bound coasts, they have saved the large casks, hold- 
ing four and five barrels, and now fill these with 
oil. Although this oil is got in the summer, as I 
have said, it is only needed in the winter when they 
are living in houses of snow and burn the oil in 
their lamps to warm them. So the casks generally 
remain on the islands until the ice forms to them, 


AHMOW S FIGHT WITH THE WOLVES, 


37 


and over this they ride merrily on their sledges to 
get it from time to time. 

It was one winter when little Ahmow’s father 
hitched up his sledge-team of six or eight fine dogs 
at the village where they where living, intending to 
go to an island some ten or twelve miles distant 
and get a cask or two of oil for the lamp, and some 
of the walrus meat and some hide to feed to the dogs. 

Ahmow’s father, Nannook by name — which 
means the polar bear, for the Eskimo are named 
like our Western Indians, after animals, birds, or 
incidents of their lives — had intended at first to 
go alone ; but his little boy begged so hard to go — 
and they humor their boys so in all their wishes 
— that his father promised him that he might. So 
Ahmow wrapped himself up in his new reindeer 
suit that his mother had just completed for him 
from the reindeer skins his father had secured in 
the fall, for it was a very cold day out-of-doors, al- 
though the Eskimo seldom notice the cold, however 
intense it may be, unless the wind is blowing sharp 
from the direction in which they want to travel. 

He helped his father, as all Eskimo children are 


38 AHMOW’S FIGHT WITH THE WOLVES. 

very fond of doing, with such aid as he could in 
preparing for the journey. He brought water in a 
sealskin bucket, and with his father put a thick 
coating of ice on the bottom of his sledge runners 
so that they would glide over the snow smoothly. 
He helped catch the dogs and harness them and 
tie them to the sledge ; and when this was done 
ran into the snow-house — or rather crawled in on 
his hands and knees, so low is the door — and got 
his father’s whip and their lunch to eat while they 
were gone. Then both of them jumping on the 
sledge, the long whiplash was cracked over the 
backs of the dogs and away they went on as merry 
a ride as any young fellow would wish to take, 
whether Eskimo or civilized boy. 

On they went at this fast gait for two or three 
miles. Then the dogs were allowed to drop down 
to a pleasant trot, a gait they will keep up all day 
with a light sledge when a number are harnessed 
to it. 

Once or twice the dogs threw their noses in the 
air and sniffed the breeze. Then Nannook would 
take one dog, the best hunter, out of the sledge, 


AHMOVV’S FIGHT WITH THE WOLVES. 39 

and the dog’s nose would lead him to a seal-hole in 
the ice. Here the two would wait a few minutes, 
and if the seal did not come to “ blow ” (which 
means to get its breath, the first gasp or two being 
quite loud), they would resume their sledge jour- 
ney. One seal came up to breathe while they were 
watching it, and Ahmow’s father caught it with his 
seal speaFj just to instruct his little boy in the way 



ESKIMO WALRUS SPEAR. 

a b — wooden handle. 
a c — walrus ivory lance. 
e — sealskin line extending to 
h — barbed head. 

When ready for use the ivory lance is “bent on” to the 
wooden handle, and the head placed on the end c ; all held 
in a straight line by the line e passed over the pin p. When 
the head is driven under the skin of an animal, a twist is 
given the spear which breaks off at <r and a, the wood and 
ivory falling away and nothing but the line is left in the 
hands of the hunter. 

of hunting and catching them. The hole in the 
snow where the seal breathes is not much larger 


40 


AHMOW S FIGHT WITH THE WOLVES. 


than a dime or quarter of a dollar ; so you can see 
that the dog’s keen nose is needed to find so small 
an affair among vast fields of ice. 

The seal was thrown on the sledge, and they 
were off again for the island with its oil-casks. 
When they were very near to it, what should they 
see spring up from its side, where he had evidently 
been prowling around the oil-casks and meat-cairns 
(huge stones piled over the meat) to get a meal, 
but a huge polar bear that made off across the ice 
to escape. 

Nannook leaned forward and, by a single pulling 
on a strap, let loose the whole team of dogs. They 
soon brought the polar bear to bay, sitting up on 
his haunches fighting them, and here they remained 
till Nannook came up with his gun, and with a 
single effectual shot killed the great animal. He 
was soon skinned, the meat from his carcass put in 
a stone cairn for dog-food in the future. 

Then Ahmow’s father commenced loading his 
sledge. A small cask of oil was put on, and an- 
other larger one about a third filled with walrus 
meat for the dogs ; the seal and bearskin put in 


AHMOW’S FIGHT WITH THE WOLVES. 


41 


the latter. Then father and son started home, the 
former walking alongside ; for the load was heavy 
and the dogs now had to go at a walk. They were 
nearly half-way back home when Nannook saw 
some reindeer on a low ridge of the land near which 
they were traveling. He asked Ahmow to watch 
the dogs while he would take the gun and try hard 
to get one or two, for there is no meat in the Arctic 
that the Eskimo prizes so highly as the reindeer. 

Presently Ahmow saw him disappear over the 
hills and he was left alone, amusing himself now 
and then by whacking a dog over the nose with the 
whip that tried to steal something from the sledge. 
By and by he sat down, thinking it was full time to 
hear a shot from his father’s gun. All the dogs 
had curled up on the snow and gone to sleep, and 
he was listlessly punching the snow with the tip of 
a long walrus spear that his father was bringing 
back home from the island. In fact he was almost 
half asleep when he heard an angry growl near him 
that he took to be caused by a dog trying to steal 
from the sledge, another interrupting him. Cast- 
ing his head around, be saw what he yet thought 


42 AHMOW’s FIGHT WITH THE WOLVES. 

was an unharnessed dog ; but a second glance 
showed him plainly it was a huge wolf, grinning 
savagely at him, not over twenty feet away. Ahmow 
manfully brought his spear-point to the front and 
felt that he was equal to his enemy when, to his 
horror, he saw that there were three or four others 
trotting up into sight. He shouted at them and 
brandished his spear and this awakened the dogs. 
To them the pack of wolves turned their attention ; 
for, singular as it may seem, there is nothing that 
they apparently like so well as dog-fiesh, attacking 
them in preference to anything around. 

Ahmow now thought he would attack the wolves 
while they were battling with his dogs. But he 
knew how ferocious and large they were ; one alone 
could easily kill him if it got any advantage over 
him. So he jumped into the open cask about a 
third full of the walrus meat, the seal and bear-skin. 
Then keeping his trusty spear handy'he picked up 
the whip and applied it so lustily to the wolves with 
all his strength that they turned from the dogs, 
after killing one and niaiming others, and paid their 
attention to him, and I .suppose the poor little 


hKAVU LITTLE AliMOW 








% 


¥ 

i 







4 


. c 

• - f 



AHMOW’S FIGHT WITH THE WOLVES. 


45 


P^skimo thought that his hour had come. They 
piled up around the cask in a most ferocious man- 
ner, snapping and growling. One put his paws on 
the top of the cask. Ahmow knocked him off with 
the spear, and the others withdrew a little. They 
soon came back to the charge and the most feroci- 
ous jumped on the smaller cask. Ahmow knocked 
this one down with the spear, wounding him. 

As the wolves withdrew a little the second time, 
Ahmow reached down in the cask, and, although it 
would seem to require the strength of a man, he 
lifted the hundred-pound seal and threw it out of 
the cask, when the voracious beasts pounced upon 
it and commenced tearing it to pieces, truly “ hun- 
gry as wolves.” Just then the boy saw his father 
coming not over a hundred yards away as he sur- 
mounted a high hummock of ice, looking for his 
sledge, his reindeer chase having been unsuccess- 
ful. And now Alamow, knowing there would be 
short work with the wolves as soon as he did arrive, 
could not resist a hunter’s temptation ; with up- 
lifted walrus spear, and throwing all the remainder 
of his strength into the thrust, he cast the spear into 


AHMOW’S FIGHT WITH THE WOLVES. 


the shoulder of one of the wrangling wolves. The 
walrus spear is so made that with a slight twist the 
handle is disengaged when an animal is struck, and 
the hunter has only the long seal-line with the barb 
under the skin just as an angler has a fish. And 
so it was with Ahmow and the wolf. The spear 
handle fell to the ground, and Ahmow had the 
wolf by the line, and on to this he held with all his 
might, while the others scampered away frightened 
by this strange proceeding. He got the line turned 
around a projecting stave and this helped him to 
hold the plunging, howling animal ; and when Nan- 
nook came up he was greeted with one of the most 
singular sights he ever beheld in his life — his lit- 
tle boy with a speared wolf at the end of his walrus 
line trying ineffectually to get away, while Ahmow 
was grinning from one ear to the other over his 
success. The dead and mangled dogs told him 
the story well enough, however ; but when it was 
explained in full to him, and to the people of the 
village, the boy was voted a hero, and always 
after was Ah-moiu, which in the Eskimo language 
means “ the Wolf.” 


STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 


I WAS once stoned by a mountain ; and a very 
disagreeable experience it was. 

About six years ago my cousin Carrie V. and I 
were staying at Miirren in Switzerland, a little vil- 
lage of red-brown chalets, perched on the top of 
the lofty cliffs which form one wall of the Lauter- 
brunnen Valley. A sheer three thousand feet be- 
low us lay the green valley with its walnut and 
cherry trees ; its stone -weighted house roofs and 
shady little pastures ; its booths where rapacious 
peasants sold silver chains, and alpenstocks, and 
carved cows and clocks and paper-knives, and 
views of snow-mountains painted on wooden boxes ; 
its wondrous waterfalls, and its “ Alpen-horn,” 
whose notes float up through the spray of the 
Staubach Fall, and bound from rock to rock, from 
cliff to cliff, and you grow sentimental and think of 

47 


48 


STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 


‘'the horns of elfland faintly blowing,” until you 
come nearer and see a hideous Swiss man blowing 
with distended crimson cheeks into the end of an 
enormous green wooden horn, which emits un- 
earthly hootings that only distance can change 
into sweet notes. 

We had climbed the steep path through the 
damp pine woods for two hours, and now we were 
living up among the clouds ; and if we dared ven- 
ture so near the dangerous cliff-edge, we could see 
all the valley down below us. But our eyes turned 
oftener to the opposite side of the Lauterbrunnen 
Valley. 

There, right before us, rose a range of snowy 
giants, thousands of feet high — Ischingelhorn, 
Breithorn, Grosshorn, Silberhorn, Giger, Monch — 
guarding the maiden mountain, the queen of this 
glorious court, the white, ethereal Jungfrau herself. 
For seven weeks we lived in sight of this spotless 
presence ; in storm and sunshine, in fog or in clear 
moonlight, we knew she was there. And we grew 
to love her, with a love full of awe ; and to watch 
her varying moods by day and night, to watch the 


49 


STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 

first rose-flush of dawn on her lofty summit, the 
cloud shadows flitting blue across her broad ex- 
panse of snow, the avalanche pouring like a white 
cataract from her sides, the sunset and the mysteri- 
ous afterglow dyeing her pure snow crimson — and 
then, when night had fallen and the stars came out, 
we watched her proud head emerge from the gloom 
and shine against the purple black of the heavens, 
clear and vast and awful. 

On this summer’s day Carrie and I turned our 
backs on the Jungfrau, and set our faces towards 
the mountains that lie behind Miirren. We were 
both botany-mad. This was my first visit to Switzer- 
land ; and the flowers in the pastures, the flowers 
in the woods, the flowers by the streams, the flow- 
ers even on the bare rocks, had gone to my head. 
I dreamt of flowers by night. I gathered flowers, 
and dug up flower-roots by day. We filled every 
glass and ju^ and basin in our little rooms with 
flowers — and had to turn them out every morning 
when we wanted to wash ! We begged vases from 
waiter and chambermaid. And at last we went 
into the chalets and bought the peasants red earth- 


50 


STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 


enware milkpans, all to be filled with flowers. 

It was just the last week in June. The hay in 
the mountain pastures was not yet cut. It was not 
common hay such as one sees in English meadows, 
with here and there an oxeyed daisy, or a bunch of 
red sorrel among the close, fine grasses. Here 
there was no grass to be seen ; but the meadows 
were masses knee-deep of bright flowers — blue 
campanulas, pink polygonums, white ranunculus, 
purple geraniums, yellow hawkweeds, and a hun- 
dred other beauties — a waving sea of brilliant 
color as the Alpine wind swept over its surface. 

No one who has only seen Switzerland in July and 
August can tell what he has lost by his late visit. 
The lovely flower fields have then turned to bare, 
parched, slippery Alps, from which even the cattle 
have fled in search of more succulent pasturage. 
The roadsides, where in June every shrub is loaded 
with fragrant blossoms and the turf gay with tiny 
flowerets, are then white with thick heavy dust from 
the ceaseless traffic ; and the few flowers that dare 
to brave the dusty glare are as “ tired ” as Mr. 
Oscar Wilde’s primroses in London. 


STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 5 1 

We had explored the hayfields and the woods 
close round Miirren during the first few days of 
our visit ; and rumors reached us of yet richer 
hunting grounds — of a valley of flowers, the 
Blumenthal — lying about half an hour’s walk 
northwest of the Hotel des Alpes. 

Now, among all the hundreds of exquisite Alpine 
flowers, there was one that I longed to find beyond 
every other. The Priumla Auricula, with its golden 
blossoms and mealy leaves, the parent of all the 
quaint and richly varied auriculas of the garden 
hovered before my mind’s eye, a tantalizing vision 
of beauty and sweetness. It only grows at a con- 
siderable height above the sea, and flowers very 
early in the season. But I vowed that if it was to 
be found I would find it. So we set out for the 
Blumenthal. 

Our way lay through the picturesque chalets of 
Miirren. All the women were sitting at their doors 
making coarse lace on pillows ; and we stopped for 
a minute to speak to lovely Elizabeth, the belle of 
the village, who had just returned from a ten-mile 
walk to carry her young husband his dinner in the 


52 


STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 


forest where he was felling trees. Ah ! these 
mountaineers know what hard work is. Our beau- 
tiful friend, Elizabeth, with a sweet wistful face 
like a Madonna in a holy picture, was barely nine- 
teen ; and yet she was out every morning before 
four to turn the cow and goats out. Then she 
joined the women of the village and picked stones 
off one of the mountain pastures for some hours, 
and after that set out to walk six or eight miles 
through the woods with her husband’s dinner which 
she had cooked meanwhile. Then came a few 
hours’ lace-making, and the evening meal had to be 
prepared, and the goats fetched home and milked. 
No wonder these people grow old before their time, 
and that even the babies have a sad, grave look in 
their eyes ; for life is hard and sad and grave to 
them — snow for eight months, coarse food, and 
biting poverty. 

We turned from the village up a steep path of 
stone steps between fields of uncut hay. Here and 
there a great grey rock peeped out of the flowery 
mass, encrusted too with flowers — saxifrages with 
feathery heads of white blooms and hard leaves 


STONED BY^A MOUNTAIN. 


53 


that look as if they were cut out of stone, and red- 
leaved houseleeks, and the exquisite dark blue 
veronica. While every crack in the walls was 
crammed full of ferns. 

After passing the last chalets — where, later in 
the afternoon, the whole village congregates to 
meet the goats as they return from their day’s 
wanderings in the high Alps — we found ourselves 
fairly in the Blumenthal. It is about three quarters 
of a mile broad, and a mile and a half long, sur- 
rounded on three sides by walls of grass sloping 
steeply up to rocky cliffs, which rise at the upper 
end to some two thousand feet, and are part of the 
first slopes of the Schilthorn. The Almendhiibel 
rose green and fir-crowned on our right ; the pre- 
cipitous rocks of the Schiltgrat on our left ; and 
down the middle of the valley, from the snows of 
the farthest wall, rushed the beautiful Miirren- 
bach between high rocks which broke it into scores 
of little waterfalls. 

The hay was white with ranunculus and blue 
with forget-me-nots ; but our object was to search 
a mass of rocks at the upper end of the valley, and 


54 


STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 


for this point we made with as little delay as pos- 
sible. It was not easy however to get on very 
fast. Every moment we had to stop and exclaim 
with joy and wonder over some fresh treasure. 
First there was a bed of the narcissus-flowered 
anemone, just coming into full bloom, the un- 
opened buds pink like a bunch of apple-blossom. 
The short, damp turf was studded with the exquis- 
ite little pink primula farinosa. The great blue 
gentian opened its deep blue corolla to the sun be- 
side the smaller Bavarian gentian, with its almost 
sky-blue flowers, and the grand golden mountain 
geum, whose blooms are as large as a penny. The 
rocks themselves were covered with a carpet of 
close-growing flowers : and at last on one I espied 
a bunch of cold gray-green leaves, with smooth, 
hard edges, and a white powdering over them. 

I screamed to Carrie that I had found the Auri- 
cula, and rushed to the spot. Alas ! I was too late. 
It was the Auricula ; but instead of a bunch of 
flowers it only bore a head of half-ripe seed-ves- 
sels. 

Nothing daunted, we determined to push on 











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STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 


57 


further. Above us lay great sheets of snow. There 
surely we could not be too late, for it was still 
winter. As we neared them, myriads of delicate 
white crocuses were springing up through the 
burnt brown grass, mingled with the tiny purple 
parasols of the soldanella, and round each heap of 
stones there was a fringe of small richly-scented 
oxlip. Where the snow had melted grew thou- 
sands of the splendid white Alpine anemone, and 
its even more beautiful sister the sulphur anemone 
— two of the grandest of all Swiss flowers. We 
gathered them by handfuls, and they glorified our 
bare hotel rooms for many a day. 

But even they were forgotten, when, with a yell 
of joy I rushed to a big stone heap. On the very 
top grew a suburb golden head of my Auricula. It 
was in full perfection, and the scent was more de- 
licious than honey or attar or all the rich perfumes 
of the East. My prize tvas won. And it was soon 
safe with our other spoils in the plant basket which 
Carrie — an experienced mountaineer — insisted 
on carrying, strapped over her shoulder. 

If we had been wise we should have gone straight 


STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 


58 

home, for the sun had disappeared behind heavy 

clouds, and the valley looked dark and forbidding. 

\ 

But having come so far we determined to go still 
further. There was a tempting green “ col ” or 
sort of pass, on the wall of the valley between the 
Schwarzhorn and the Schiltgrat, and this we 
thought we would try to reach. It would be such 
fun to do a bit of real mountain climbing all alone 
and unaided. A smooth green slope, broken here 
and there by piles of stones or a solitary rock, led 
up to the col; and on we went. 

Never was green slope more cruelly deceptive. 
I am afraid to say at what angle it lay. We wore 
heavy nailed boots, and had strong alpenstocks — 
none of the poor, weak, amateur things that you 
buy at Interlaken with names of irpountains rudely 
burnt on them ; but good tough ash sticks that 
could bear a man’s weight — and I know that even 
with these helps I could hardly keep my feet as I 
toiled up sideways like a crab. For it was in real- 
ity a mass of the finest slate detritus covered with 
vegetation, which recent rain had made as slippery 
as so much ice. Once on it, to return was impos- 


STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 


59 


sible. So with great difficulty I managed to reach 
a large boulder which gave me firm foothold. 
Cushions of the minute moss pink, silene acaulis, 
covered the rock, and I sat admiring it while I 
waited for Carrie, who was laden with the heavy 
plant basket, to join me. 

While I was waiting and resting I suddenly 
heard a roar and a rattle that made me spring to 
my feet with a cry of warning to Carrie. Two big 
boulders came bounding down towards us from the 
upper cliffs. Down they came with savage leaps, 
and ever-increasing velocity, making straight, it 
seemed to me, for my companion. But mercifully 
they passed between us within half a dozen yards 
of where she stood, and plunging on, buried them- 
selves in the snow far below. 

As soon as they had disappeared Carrie scram- 
bled on to the shelter of my rock ; and there we 
cowered for a moment, hardly knowing which way 
to go. We looked up to see if any man or any 
animal was on the cliffs above, and had dislodged 
the stones. But not a living thing was in sight. 

Then we knew that the mountain itself was 


oo 


STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 


rstoning US ; and we also knew that if one of these 
stones struck us we should never get back to Miir- 
ren again. 

It was no good, however, staying where we were. 
So gathering together all our courage we hurried 
on again up the cruel green slope. Every instant 
I expected to hear or see another of those horrible 
black boulders bounding down upon us. But at 
last we gained the top of the col in safety ; and fol- 
lowing a tiny goat path up a knife-edge of shaly 
rock some six inches wide, with deep precipices on 
either hand, we threw ourselves panting and breath- 
less on the wet turf at the top of the Schiltgrat. 
Here a glorious view of mountain and valley, rock 
and snow lay before us. We were six thousand 
nine hundred and seventy feet above the sea, and 
one thousand six hundred and forty-nine feet above 
Miirren. 

But rain-clouds were rolling up from the vah 
ley, so we dared not stay to look at views or 
gather Alpen-rose. We were now on the border 
of a high and dry Alp ; and finding a good path we 
set off for home, reaching the hotel in forty-five 


STONED BY A MOUNTAIN. 6l 

minutes, drenched to the skin, but triumphant at 
our exploit, and very thankful for our escape. 

Next day we told Elizabeth where we had been. 

“ Ach ! Fraiilein,” she cried in horror, “ but it 
was at the peril of your lives. The mountain — 
the Miirrenberg — is wicked. He throws stones 
at all who come. Many times he has killed our 
people. Ach ! for the love of heaven do not be so 
rash again.” 

And I can assure you we took her advice. 


“LITTLE CAPTAIN” OF 
BUCKSKIN CAMP. 


B uckskin was “ snowed up.” The dam was 
broken, the ditch frost-bound, and the sluice- 
box, snow-drifted, trembled no longer to the rush 
of the laboring water. 

On the trail across the Range the snow lay 
shoulder-deep in ever-accumulating drifts. Snow- 
slides were frequent and crossing was alike ardu 
ous and dangerous ; but Scandinavian Charley, the 
mailcarrier, equipped with snow-shoes, with the 
pouch strapped on his back, still kept up irregular 
communication with the outer world. For though 
Buckskin was a placer mining camp only, and 
most of its summer inhabitants had gone at the 
close of the working season to more genial winter 
quarters, the gulch was not wholly deserted ; and 

from some half a dozen of the cabins straggling 
62 


“ LITTLE CAPTAIN ” OF BUCKSKIN CAMP. 63 

along it smoke arose on the frosty mountain air. 

Near the head of the gulch, surrounded by a few 
naked saplings of leafless quaking asp, a tumble- 
down cabin had been carelessly pitched so close to 
the stream as to catch unceasingly the murmur of 
its flow. From the low chimney of this structure a 
thick black smoke was pouring, and the door being 
open for better draft, a rich root of pitch pine was 
seen blazing in the fireplace. This was the winter 
quarters of Kentucky Bill ; and he himself was 
seated on the doorstep, adding with a sheath knife 
to the many carvings with which the slab door- 
frame was already ornamented. From where he 
sat a well-trodden footpath, leading below could 
be traced all down the gulch, and every little while 
he turned and looked along it — for this hospitable 
proprietor was expecting a guest in whose honor 
supper was smoking on the hearth within. No 
rough-and-ready rambler of the pick and pan was 
Kentucky Bill — a trim-built young fellow, not 
great as to stature, but then if the heart was the 
measure of men Kentucky Bill would have stridden, 
forth a giant in Buckskin. 


64 “ LITTLE CAPTAIN ’’ OF BUCKSKIN CAMP. 

As he notched the door and watched the trail, 
a small figure came out of a cabin below and 
took its way upward. On its approach he arose. 
“ Hello, Little Captain,” he said, as he stooped 
and took his expected guest by the hand. “ I’ve 
been a-waitifig for you. Come right in. I reckon 
we can scare up something for supper.” 

With one dexterous twist he placed his single 
stool before the fire and lifted his guest on it. On 
the hearth a coffee pot was bubbling and by its side 
a bake-oven sat simmering. On bended knee the 
host lifted the lid and peeped within. A savory 
steam arose. 

“ Grouse pot pie ! ” cried the guest in tones of 
gratification, after a long inhalation. “That’s 
what I like best of anything.” 

“ No ? ” said Kentucky Bill ; “ well, I kinder 
reckoned you would. Now, Little Cap, you pull 
off your hat and smooth down your hair and I’ll 
pour out the coffee and chunk up the fire.” 

This latter operation the host performed with a 
kick of his miner’s boot and sent a blaze through 
the cabin. Meantime Little Cap endeavors with 


“little captain of buckskin camp. 65 

both hands to get the tangles out of his neglected 
hair. In the firelight one sees what a very little 
fellow he is, with a delicate face and eyes of inno- 
cence, whom every one at first look takes for a girl 
and all voices in addressing — 

Soften, sleeken every word 
As if speaking to a bird. 

But in no fitting bird’s' plumage was Little Cap 
attired. A pair of ill-shaped heelless shoes cut 
from old boot-tops covered his feet. His trousers 
were a pair of old overalls cut down, with long and 
straggling stitches marking the seams. A miner’s 
red flannel shirt fell from his shoulders and swept 
his heels and over all was an old slouched hat that 
barely left visible the point of his dimpled chin — 
but this head-covering lay now on the floor as he 
strove to make his toilet. 

It was Little Cap’s father who had fashioned 
this dress. For his mother — alas, for Little Cap 
— had died on the Overland Trail and lay buried 
far Eastward in the sand-hills. Of her he had only 
the dimmest memory of a face under a limp sun- 


66 LITTLE CAPTAIN ” OF BUCKSitiN CAMP. 

bonnet, but his father often told him about her. 
“And so, Cap,” he always said, “your pore magot 
mighty tired on the trail, fur our travellin’ was slow, 
and she started on ahead to kinder pint the way fur 
me and you to foller. And so ‘she crossed the 
Range ’ long before we got nigh the mount’ins. And 
she’s waiting fur me and you over on tother side of 
the cross on yon mount’in, now.” And while Cap 
would look at the cross marked out by snow-filled 
fissures on the mountain’s breast, and almost expect 
to see her standing there, his “pa ” would struggle 
with a sigh, and look over his clothes with a face 
of melancholy. “ Well, well, it ain’t to be expected, 
I reckon, that a prospector could fix up a chile’s 
clothes like his ma. /can’t, no how.” 

The pot pie had vanished and Little Cap sat 
looking in the fire. Suddenly he spoke : 

“ How long is it before Christmas, Bill? ” 

“ Two days yet.” 

“ Uncle Kentucky Bill,” he said earnestly, fixing 
his trusting eyes on Bill’s face, “ did you ever see 
Santa Claus yourself ? ” 

“ I did,” Bill said solemnly. 


“ LITTLE CAPTAIN^’ OF BUCKSKIN CAMP. 6^ 

“ Where ’bouts ? ” 

“ It was at home,” Bill replied, with a retrospect- 
ive look in the fire. “ I was a boy then myself, 
but bigger than you are now. Cap, and I was out 
in the woods. The woods there ain’t like these 
here soft pine and silvery spruces, but good honest 
hard timber such as oak and hickory that sheds its 
leaves and don’t look everlastingly the same, and 
bears acorns for pigs to eat and hickory nuts that’s 
good for boys instead of useless pine cones. And 
the snow don’t fall there like it does here and I 
wish — I wish. Little Cap, you and me was there 
to-day a-going to keep Christmas at home.” 

“But about Santa Claus,” Little Cap persisted, 
as Bill made a long pause. 

“ O yes,” Bill continued. “Yes. Let me see. 
I was out in the woods a-setting on the limb of a 
big oak snag, poking a stick in a gray squirrel’s 
hole just to see if he was at home, when Santa 
Claus he came by right under me.” 

“ What was he like ? ” his listener interrupted. 
“ And was he driving reindeer.? ” 

“ Yes, he was driving reindeer, four of them,” Bill 


68 “ LITTLE CAPTAIN OF BUCKSKIN CAMP. 

said, Stirring the fire with his boot in an effort to stir 
up his recollection also. “ And he was like — just 
what I told you the othei day, Cap, you remember ? ” 

“Yes, I remember. Do you think, uncle Ken- 
tucky Bill, he will come here this Christmas ? And 
how can he get here with his reindeer, and snow 
always falling, so even the black tails and the elk 
can’t get through it ? ” 

“ That’s so,” said Bill, meditatively. “ You’re 
about right. And then, too, this camp is a long 
way out of his road. And I kinder think if I was 
you ” — and he looked in hesitation at the earnest 
face upturned to his own — “ if I was you, I would 
be a brave little Captain and if he didn’t come this 
Christmas bear right up and wait for next.” 

“That’s a long way off and I wanted to see him 
awful bad after all you told me,” said Little Cap- 
tain in a tone that gave small indication of “bear- 
ing up.” “ And, Bill, I’ve kept one stockin’ most 
as good as new to hang up like you said I must.” 

Kentucky Bill looked at his brimming eyes and 
was smitten with remorse. For it was from him 
and him alone, that the lonely Little Captain had 


‘‘little captain” of buckskin camp. 69 

obtained his knowledge of Santa Claus. He turned 
to the door. Up the gulch his eyes ran to the 
notch in the hills where the trail wound out. And 
then all around and above to where the Holy Cross 
shone clear on the cloudless mountain. No storm- 
signs were afloat. For a moment he stood at the 
door looking, then entering, he laid a hand caress- 
ingly on the grief-bowed head. 

“ Now, don’t you cry. Little Cap,” he said, “ for 
seeing that you expect him so bad I reckon he’ll 
be here after all. I’ve kinder thought about it and 
he’ll leave his reindeer on the other side of the 
Range, and tramp across on snow-shoes like Scan- 
dinavian Charley does, and fetch you what he can. 
When a boy is as little as you and ainh got no ma 
besides it wouldn’t be exactly on the square in 
Santa Claus to go and forget you. He ain’t a-going 
to do it. Just hang up your stockin’. Little Cap, 
and keep your eyes open on Christmas Eve and 
Santa Claus will come in the regular way right 
down the chimbley of your pa’s cabin.” 

As many as a dozen times on Christmas Eve did 
Little Cap tread the path to Kentucky Bill’s c^bin. 


70 “ LITTLE CAPTAIN ” OF BUCKSKIN CAMP. 

To his ever-increasing surprise he found no one 
there and the fireless hearth told the owner had 
been long absent. In much wonder thereat and 
tingling anticipation of the coming of Santa Claus, 
he was too much excited to eat the supper sat 
before him by the plenteous hand of his pa. After- 
wards, too, when night and his bedtime came, he 
sat sleeplessly on a log by the fire, turning his head 
like a little mountain owl to the talk of the pros- 
pectors, who one by one had dropped in. 

Time passed ; as they sat and talked, he arose 
and slipped unnoticed from the cabin for one more 
look, as he said to himself, to see if Kentucky Bill 
had come home. 

Silently his little figure went up the path, his 
head bobbing along just even with the snow bank 
on either side. He found the cabin dark and then 
he thought he would cross the gulch and go just a 
little way up on the opposite side and he could 
then see the trail where it wound out of the gulch, 
and may be if Santa Claus was coming down it, he 
might, by happy chance, see him. 

The thought was inspiring. The crusted surface 


“little captain ” of buckskin camp. 71 

of the snow bore his light weight and up and up 
the slope he climbed until further progress was 
checked by a huge granite rock. Against this he 
leaned, out of breath, to rest. 

The night was cold but still and clear and over 
the slope above his head the moon was rising. 
Where he stood was still in shadow, but the moon- 
beams struck fair on the opposite side of the gulch 
and sparkling on the frosted snow made all there 
almost as bright as day. Huge rocks of granite 
arose here and there and cast long shadows on the 
snow, and above these, on the crest of the slope, 
the bare trunks that marked the track of some 
mountain fire stood up, clear-cut, like silver sticks. 
Above these yet, holding its holy sign on high, the 
towering mountain loomed in the moonlight. 

Looking along on the opposite side he could see 
for some distance where the trail ran upward. 
And as he looked he thought he could distinguish 
an object moving down. He held his breath and 
listened. No air was stirring and he could catch 
faintly the sounds of snow-shoes slipping over the 
snow. Down over the drifts the figure of a man 


72 “ LITTLE CAPTAIN ” OF BUCKSKIN CAMP. 

came in sight, white with hoarfrost that sparkled 
in the moonlight, with snow-shoes on his feet and a 
pack on his back. Could this indeed be Santa 
Claus ? The small watcher’s heart gave one big 
bound and then almost stopped for awe and pleas- 
ure. He shrank closer in the shadow of the rock 
as Santa Claus came on, and saw him stop on 
striking into the harder trodden path and take off 
his encumbering snow-shoes. Twirling them over 
his shoulder he then resumed his way. 

He had gotten nearly as far down as Kentucky 
Bill’s cabin when, without an instant’s warning, the 
opposite slope seemed to Little Cap to give way, 
and slide into the gulch with a crunching sound. 
Fine particles of frost and snow filled the air and 
as they settled he saw to his terror that Santa 
Claus and Kentucky Bill’s cabin had alike disap- 
peared. 

The frosty air was cold but Little Cap flung 
away the old coat that always tripped him up and 
flew along the crusted snow down the gulch. His 
father and the others had been aroused by the 
noise of the slide and they were coming up to the 


“ LITTLE CAPTAIN ” OF BUCKSKIN CAMP. 73 

scene when he suddenly rolled down at their feet. 

“ O pa,” he gasped, out of breath, “ the moun- 
tain — fell down — right on — old Santa Claus ! ” 

His father gave a cry of surprise and stooped 
and raised him in his arms. 

“ Why, Cap,” he said, “ I thought you was asleep 
long ago ! ” Then he spoke hurriedly to the 
others. “ Maybe, men. Cap did see somebody, sure 
’nough, and we’d better get our shovels and pros- 
pect a little on the trail above Kentucky Bill’s 
shanty. Bill was in big luck to go away yesterday 
and not be there when the slide struck it.” 

As he spoke he turned into his cabin with Little 
Cap, and tucking him between the blankets bade 
him go to sleep right off and they would go and 
find Santa Claus. 

With shouldered shovels the. rescuers started to 
search the snow. The slide had been a large one 
changing the familiar appearance of the gulch. 
Kentucky Bill’s cabin with its well-known surround- 
ings was no longer to be seen, and of the tapering 
quaking asps only the topmost boughs stuck up like 
low bushes from the heaped-up snow. Passing 


74 “ LITTLE CAPTAIN ” OF BUCKSKIN CAMP. 

around at a little distance, they came on signs that 
quickened their hearts and steps alike. There 
some one, on striking the well-trodden trail, had 
stopped and taken off a pair of snow-shoes and be- 
low were fresh tracks pointing downward. Judging 
by these Santa Claus must have been all right thus 
far, for he had left in the freshly fallen frost the 
O K plainly printed by the nails in the heavy sole 
of the prospector’s boot which he wore. Following 
the tracks down to where trail and all were oblit- 
erated by the slide they scattered over it. It was 
only a moment when Little Cap’s pa gave a cry 
that drew all to him. There, sticking partly out of 
the snow, just on the edge of the slide, was a pair 
of snowshoes. Ah, never at the gleam of gold had 
they dug as they dug then, fearing all too late to 
find their wearer with his heart snowbound forever. 

A short while that seemed all too long, and a 
wild hurrah rang out and was caught up and sent 
back by the frosty hills. In slow procession down 
the gulch the little band of diggers came and 
stopped at the cabin wherein lay Little Cap. He, 
himself, wide awake, sat up in bed and watched 


“little captain” of buckskin camp. 71 ^ 

them enter. They carried, to his surprise, not 
Santa Claus indeed, but Kentucky Bill, somewhat 
bruised and battered, it is true, but still himself. 

“ Boys, give me that pack,” he said in a voice 
just above a whisper as the “ boys ” laid him on 
the bed beside Little Cap. “ Now, Cap,” he whis- 
pered as the pack was placed between them, “you 
open it. Old Santa Claus himself gave it to me 
for you. For knowing he wasn’t used to travelling 
out of his sled I went over to make sure he didn’t 
get off the trail into the drifts and we both came 
footing it along together, but he was late — kinder 
delayed by. slides and such — and so he had to 
hurry on and left it with me to bring to you.” 

“ O uncle Kentucky Bill,” said Little Cap as he 
knelt on the bed and looked down at him with soft 
eyes, “ did the mount’in fall on you, too ? ” 

Bill smiled as he replied almost in his old voice, 
“ I was beginning to think it had, but you needn’t 
feel so sorry. Cap. Your pa says my old shanty is 
safe to stay till summer under forty feet of snow 
and I reckon I’d be a-laying under it now myself 
.r— but for you and old Santa Claus,” 


THE RUBBER BABY. 


ILVER^S father was a rubber trader. He had 



built himself a rude lodge on the banks of 
the Madeira, one of the tributaries of the Amazon, in 
the very wildest part of the great wilderness of Bra- 
zil. Here he bought the crude rubber from the 
Indian collectors, and stored it in a warehouse, which 
was hardly more than a tent, until the arrival of some 
boat by which he could send it to Para. 

It was a strange place for such a little girl as Sil- 
ver. The houses were elevated on stilts, for the 
river ran in front and sometimes overflowed its 
banks. The palm-thatched roofs projected like those 
of Swiss chalets, over balconies where the hammocks 
were hung for the siesta ; at night they were carried 
into the interior, and the door (there were no win- 
dows) closed to keep out the mosquitoes. 


The Tubber Baby. 


77 


You can imagine that with such a house Silver 
spent most of her time out-of doors ; and here 
there was much to interest her. Philomena, their 
Indian cook, had all out-doors for her kitchen, and 
prepared their dinner at a gypsy kettle, very much 
like the contrivances that ladies place on their lawns, 
but instead of coleus and other gay-leaved plants 
there was a fire beneath and a good turtle soup or 
some other dainty in the kettle. For Philomena was 
an artist in her profession, and they had some dishes 
at this out-of-the-world place that would have made 
an epicure tear his hair with envy, and that could not 
be had for any amount of money at the Astor House 
or Delmonico’s. 

Their table was set under a beautiful palm, with a 
rather short trunk, whose huge fan-shaped leaves 
seemed to be gathered into a bouquet and spread on 
all sides, giving the tree the shape of a feather dus- 
ter. All around them was the forest, so dense that 
it was impossible to penetrate it to any distance ex- 
cept by the paths made by the serinqueiros or rubber 
collectors. 

Silver had gone once with her father to the hut of 
one of the gatherers, a poor Indian woman, who 
spent her days wading through marshy ground where 
lurked poisonous water-snakes, and treading jungles 


78 


2'he Rubber Baby. 


where jaguars had been found. The woman’s name 
was Justimiama. Her husband had been a rubber 
gatherer too, but he had died, and now she followed 
alone his arduous and perilous occupation. 

Have any of. you ever been in the country in 
“ sugaring time ? ” If you have you know how the 
maple trees are tapped, the sap collected and boiled 
into a waxy syrup and then cooled into maple sugar. 
The Siphonia Elastica, as the botanists call the rub- 
ber tree, is tapped in much the same way. Justimi- 
ama, as she went out on her daily rounds, would go 
to the nearest rubber tree, make a number of cuts all 

around the trunk, and fasten under each cut a little 

\ 

cup, made from clay, to catch the milky sap. Then 
she would pass on to the next tree, and as they did 
not grow very near together, it would take her nearly 
half a day to reach the farthest one on her route. Then 
she would retrace her steps, and as she went back, 
empty the little cups into queer pails made from 
^calabashes. These calabashes had a braided cover- 
ng and handle by which they could be carried ; they 
were egg-shaped and about the size of your head. 
When she reached home, Justimiama emptied the 
rubber sap into the shell of a great turtle, which 
served as a trough or basin. She had just done this 
W'hen little Silver and her father arrived at the cabin. 



TAPPING THE RUBBER TREE. 


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The Rubber Baby. 


8i 


“ Eat your dinner, Justimiama, and I will show this 
little girl how rubber is prepared,” said Mr. Bon- 
bright. 

But the poor woman was so delighted to see the 
child that she could hardly eat her coarse farina for 
looking at her. 

Outside the hut was a tall earthern jar or jug 
which Silver examined curiously, for she could not 
imagine for what use it could be intended. It could 
not hold water or any other liquid, for it had no 
bottom. 

“ What do you think it is, Silver,” asked Mr. Bon- 
bright. 

“ It looks like a lamp chimney,” replied Silver'; “ but 
it is much too big.” 

“ It is a chimney, however,” said Mr. Bonbright ; 
and collecting some palm nuts from a little heap near 
by, he made a small bonfire and then placed the 
great earthen chimney over it. The smoke issued 
from the top in thick white clouds. 

Mr. Bonbright then took a long wooden paddle 
which lay beside the turtle shell, and dipping up 
some of the rubber sap with a small calabash, poured 
it on both sides of the paddle. He then held it in 
the smoke just over the chimney, turning it carefully 
so that not a drop fell, The smoke hardened the 


82 


The Rubber Baby. 


sap into a leathery substance, and at the same time 
changed it to a yellowish color. As fast as it hard- 
ened he poured on more sap, until quite a mass of 
rubber had collected on the paddle. 

Justimiama, who had finished her farina, now 
came and cut off the rubber with a knife, remarking 
that Mr. Bonbright was almost as skilful a workman 
as herself. Then Silver wanted to try ; and as the 
great paddle was too heavy for her to balance, Mr. 
Bonbright whittled out a smaller one, and she made 
her little cake of rubber, which her father said should 
be sent with the rest dowi) the river to Para, 
whence it would go to the United States, and there 
be manufactured into — who could tell what! Per- 
haps a rubber baby ; and if it was he would write to 
have it sent back for his little girl to play with. 

This remark of her father’s about a rubber baby, 
created a deep impression on Silver’s mind. She 
had never had a doll, and she fancied that this rubber 
baby might laugh, and creep, and eat, and sleep, 
like other babies which she had seen. 

“ When will the baby come .? ” asked Silver. 

“ I think you may safely expect her about Christ- 
mas time,” replied Mr. Bonbright ; “ I shall ask 
Santa Claus to bring her.” 

The face of the Indian woman lightened at the 


r-TTTLE SILVER MAKES A CAKE OF RUBBER. 





The Rubber Baby. 


85 


mention of Christmas. “Come and spend part of 
that day with me, little one,” she said, kindly, as her 
guests were leaving. 

“ What does she know about Christmas 1 ” Silver 
asked of her father, as they followed the trail through 
the forest. 

“ She was educated at one of the Jesuit Missions, 
and has not forgotten the merry-makings and shows 
with which it was celebrated.” 

“ I wonder whether she hangs up her stocking,” 
thought Silver, for her mother had taught her to keep 
Christmas Eve in the northern 'fashion ; and then she 
laughed softly to herself as she thought that Justimi- 
ama had no stockings to hang up, and no chimney 
but that over which the rubber was smoked. “ She 
was very kind to me,” thought Silver; and she asked 
aloud, “ Did she ever have a litde girl of her own ? ” 

“Yes,” replied Mr. Bonbright ; “a black-haired, 
bright-eyed little girl, who made the hut a very cheer- 
ful place ; but when she grew up she ran away with 
a worthless Indian, and her poor mother has never 
seen her since.” 

It seemed a long time to Silver until Christmas, 
but she was a patient child and waited without fret- 
ting, though the rubber baby that was to come was 
much in her thoughts. Philomena taught her to 


86 


The Rubber Baby. 


sew, and she busied herself making a little white 
cotton shirt for the baby. Philomena gave her a 
piece of coarse linen lace which she had herself 
made, and Silver sewed it around the neck of the 
little garment which she hoped would fit the baby. 

The day before Christmas, Silver paid a visit to 
her friend, the rubber gatherer, carrying with her one 
of her little stockings, which she hung beside the 
earthen chimney out-of-doors, explaining to Justimi- 
ama that they had no chimney at her own home, and 
she was afraid Santa Claus would not find it. 

The woman smiled, and determined to make the 
child some sweetmeats, and a little arrow-root pud- 
ding, flavored with the seed of a climbing orchid. 
The pudding would have had a familiar taste to you, 
for the orchid was the vanilla from which an extract 
is made, which I have no doubt your mother some- 
times puts in her puddings. 

When Christmas morning came, the path into the 
forest was white, not with snow but with the falling 
petals of flowers ; for the tropic sun beamed down 
as warmly as it does on our Fourth of July, and Sil- 
ver’s muslin dress was thinner, and there was less of 
it than any which you ever wore at her size. She 
carried in her hand the little shirt which she had 
made, and wondered very much whether it would fit 


The Rubber Baby, 85^ 

her rubber baby which she had no doubt was waiting 
for her by the chimney. 

Justimiama had expected her little friend, and had 
risen a great deal earlier than usual to put her hut in 
order and place the little cake of sweetmeat in the 
child’s stocking, and the calabash of pudding beside 
it. Then she had stuck a rude cross, which she 
made of palm branches, before her door, and which 
she decorated with beautiful flowers from the forest 
in honor of the founder of Christmas; and then 
dashing the tears from her eyes, as she remembered 
that the last time she had celebrated Christmas was 
before her own daughter had left her, the lonely 
woman took her hatchet and calabashes and set out on 
her daily round of rubber gathering. 

Some time after she had gone, a haggard, wild- 
looking woman pushed her way through another path 
toward the rubber gatherer’s hut. She paused when 
she reached it in dumb surprise at the sight of the 
cross at the door. Then some old recollection 
seemed to stir within her. and a milder, softened look 
came to her face. She peered cautiously into the 
interior of the hut, and the fact that it was empty 
seemed to reassure her. She sat down wearily be- 
side the cross ; and a baby, that was fastened in a 
sort of sling across her shoulders, cried aloud. 


88 


The Rubber Baby. 


The little thing was hungry ; so was the woman 
for a whole day had passed since she had eaten. 
Silver’s pudding in the calabash caught her eye, and 
she snatched it up ravenously, but she did not taste a 
morsel. She held the calabash to the baby’s lips, 
and the greedy little thing drained every drop ; then, 
its hunger satisfied, it fell asleep on her knees. 

All this time. Silver was coming nearer and nearer 
through the forest. Her heart was so light that she 
sang a Christmas carol that an old Spanish lady had 
taught her. The words were very quaint and odd. 
This was the way it ran : 

He was born in a hovel 
Of spicier webs full : 

Beside him there grovel 
An ox and a mule ; 

And King Melchior bade, 

To honor the day, 

And that none might be sad, 

The musicians should play. 


I’m a poor little gypsy 
From over the sea . 

I bring him a chicken 
That cries quir-i-qui 
For each of us, sure. 

Should offer his part; 

Be you ever so poor, 

You can give him your heart 










Mrlii 


ON HER WAY TO THE CHRISTMAS STOCKING. 




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The Rubber Baby. 


91 


Good night, Father Joseph: 

Madonna so mild, 

We leave with regret 
Your adorable child, 

With the crown on his locks, 

The symbol of rule : 

■ Sleep in peace, Senor Ox ! 

God bless you. Sir Mule 1 

The crouching woman heard the sweet, young voice 
carolling joyfully — clearer and still clearer. She 
rose, and lifting the earthen chimney placed the 
sleeping baby under it, and hurried away by the 
same path over which she had come. 

When Silver reached the place and saw the floral 
cross, she clapped her hands with delight, and 
exclaimed that now at last she had a Christmas 
tree, a real Christmas tree, such as her mother had told 
her the children in the North had at Christmas 
time. She was rather noisy in her glee, and the 
baby under the chimney awoke and cried. 

This did not surprise Silver in the least \ it 
must be, she thought, her rubber baby — but where 
was it ? She looked in the stocking and found a little 
mould of guava jelly, shaped like a fish and wrapped 
in a leaf. This was very nice, but it was not the 
baby. 

But as the baby kept on crying, Silver soon discov- 
ered where it was hidden, and pushed the chimney 


92 


The Rubber Baby. 


over. She concluded that as it was too large to put 
in her stocking, Santa Claus had dropped it down the 
chimney; and she set about trying on the little shirt 
which she had brought. 

This was all the more easily done, as the baby had 
on no clothes whatever, except a necklace of beads 
with a little silver cross. It seemed pleased with its 
new robe, and allowed Silver to hold it, and sing tc 
it, and feed it with her jelly-fish — as she very appro 
priately called her little mould of sweetmeat. 

As for Silver, she was never so happy in all her 
life. Here was the rubber baby for which she had 
waited so long. It was just the color of the rubber 
when sent away — a light, yellowish buown ; and as 
her father had told her that one of the desirable 
peculiarities of rubber babies was that they would 
wash, she brought a little water from the spring 
near by and began to scrub its face, and her happi- 
ness was if possible increased when she found that 
its complexion did not wash off. 

Presently, Justimiama returned, and then all of 
Silver’s happiness was destroyed ; for when she 
heard Silver’s account, she looked at the baby very 
earnestly and the little cross on the necklace. Then 
she shrieked aloud the name of her lost child, and 
seizing the baby in her arms darted down the path, 


The Rubber Baby. 


93 


her instinct telling her that the baby’s mother was 
her own daughter and that she was not far distant, 
d'hey came back presently together, with their arms 
around each other, laughing and crying hysterically, 
and chattering like a pair of monkeys. 

Silver was disgusted and* took her leave. It ap- 
peared that Santa Claus had not intended the baby for 
her after all, but for the old rubber gatherer. Tears 
of disappointment welled up in her eyes as she 
walked toward home. She had lost her rubber baby 
and the little shirt, as well as her pudding and jelly 
fish which the little gourmand had eaten ; and 
though her father met her with a rubber doll with a 
bright pink and white complexion that would not 
come off and a bright pink and white dress that 
would, it was long before she could be comforted. 


/ 


A RIDE ON A CENTAUR. 



ID’S mother had a way of telling him stories just 


before he went to bed, and Sid loved bed-time 
more than any other hour in the day. I couldn’t be- 
gin to tell you all he had learned in this way nor all 
the places he had been to. When people travel in 
strange countries they have to have a guide who knows 
the fine roads and wonderful places to be seen in that 
part of the world. Now Sid was a little traveller just 
setting out on a very long journey and it was a very 
fortunate thing for him that he had his mother as a 


•uide, 


g' 


When night was coming on and it was getting dark 
out of doors, the open wood fire was lighted in the 
back parlor ; and then in the glow which made every- 
thing in the room look so queer, with his hand in hers, 
Sid’s mother took him off to other lands and even to 
the Moon. 


94 


A Ride on a Centaur. 


9S 

One night, not long ago, as Sid sat looking into the 
fire with his head against his mother’s knee, she said : 

“ Come, Sid, let’s go to Greece and take a ride 
on a Centaur. ” 

Nothing could have pleased Sid more. He hadn’t 
the slightest idea what a Centaur was, but he loved to 
ride, and it made very little difference to him what he 
rode on. 

Besides he was tired to-night and didn’t feel like 
walking ; so, with his eyes half shut, and feeling very, 
very comfortable, Sid waited for the Centaur to take 
him off. 

“ Well,” said his mother, in a voice that was always 
very sweet to him ; “there’s a little country in Greece 
called Thessaly, and it’s full of caves, and beautiful 
valleys as well. In one of the caves lived a Centaur 
named Chiron. He had the body of a horse, but in- 
stead of a horse’s neck and head he had the head 
and shoulders and body of a man down to the waist. 
He was a very old and wise Centaur and although he 
lived in a cave he loved the open air on the high 
mountains.” 

How much longer Sid’s mother talked I don’t 
know. Although she did not notice it, Sid was gone. 
He had been carried off by a Centaur. While he 
was looking into the fire and wondering what made 


96 


A Ride on a Cefitaur. 


the coals take such queer shapes he heard a strange 
noise outside. It wasn’t exactly the neighing of a 
horse and it was not exactly the voice of a man, but 
it was something between the two. 

“That’s very funny,” said Sid to himself; “wonder 
what it is ! ” 

In a moment or two he heard it again and it 
sounded a great deal nearer than before. Then there 
was a sharp canter down the road and the clatter of 
hoofs past the windows. Sid’s mother did not seem 
to pay any attention to the noise, but she had stopped 
talking — at least Sid thought she had, and he got up 
very quietly, stepped out into the hall and went to the 
side door. There wasn’t any moon but the stars were 
shining brightly and there, going round and round the 
circle of grass under the apple trees, Sid saw a 
splendid black horse. As it came round again to the 
place where he stood Sid saw that it was not a horse 
after all, for above its forelegs it had the head and 
body of a man. 

It was a Centaur. Sid had never seen one before 
and he was sure nobody in that neighborhood owned 
one. Where it had come from he hadn’t the slight- 
est idea, and if it had’nt been for the apple trees and 
the great, dark church beyond he would* have be- 
lieved he was dreaming. 


A Ride on a Centaur. 97 

The Centaur cantered around two or three trees 
more, and then, without saying a word, as he passed 
Sid, stretched out his arms, caught the boy, put him 
on his back and was off like a racer. No boy ever 
had such a ride before and I don’t know that any 
one ever will again. 

No sooner had the Centaur struck the road than he 
broke into a gallop and went thundering along 
through the night as if a thousand witches or some 
other horrible creatures were chasing him. His 
hoofs rang on the hard ground and struck sparks of 
fire out of the stones along the way. On and on they 
flew, past houses and orchards and ponds over which 
a white mist lay like a soft night dress. They leaped 
the tall gates without so much as dropping a penny 
for the keeper who was fast asleep in the little house, 
and they rushed over bridges as if there were no no- 
tices about fast driving posted up at either end. 
Faster and faster they flew along until fences and 
trees and barns were all mixed up together and Sid 
couldn’t tell one from the other. He thought the 
Centaur couldn’t go any faster, but he was mistaken, 
for he broke into a dead run and then such going ! 
It took Sid’s breath away. Every thing vanished and 
there wasn’t any thing left in the world but himself 
and the Centaur and the wind that was tiydng its best 


98 A Ride on a Centaur. 

to blow him off. There wasn’t any noise either. It 
was just one tremendous rush. It was like the flight 
of an arrow that goes straight through the air from 
the moment it leaves the bow till the moment it 
strikes the mark and there’s hardly a breath between. 

How long the ride was I don’t know for Sid never 
could tell, but after a time the Centaur began to 
slacken speed, broke into a gallop, then into a gentle 
trot and finally stopped short. His broad flanks 
were steaming and he was wet from hoof to hoof, but 
he did not seem to mind it. 

Sid had been a little frightened at first, and you 
must admit that it was rather alarming to be picked 
up and carried off like the wind by a Centaur — but he 
was a brave boy and soon forgot every thing but 
the splendid ride he was taking. As soon as the 
Centaur stopped he slipped down and stood on the 
ground. 

Although it was night the air was so soft and pure 
and the stars shone so brightly through it that he 
could see it was a strange country. There were hills 
everywhere but they were green and although it was 
wild it looked beautiful as far as he could see. 

The (Centaur stretched himself on the ground and 
Sid saw that although ^his face was very queer it was 
quite intelligent. He seemed to be waiting to rest 




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A Ride on a Centaur, 


lOI 


himself. Sid wanted very much to talk with him but 
he wasn’t sure that he ought to and he didn’t know 
exactly what to say. There was so much of the horse 
about the Centaur that Sid couldn’t make up his 
mind whether he really was a horse or a man. 

The Centaur paid no attention to the boy for a 
long time but finally he turned to him and said ; 

“ Well, how did you like it ? ” 

The voice was queer, there was no doubt about 
that. It made him think of a horse, but the words 
were human. The Centaur could speak good Eng- 
lish, there was no doubt about that either. 

“It was just siDlendid,” Sid answered. “What 
made you come for me ?” 

“Why,” replied the Centaur, speaking slowly as 
if it were not easy for him to talk; “ I knew you could 
ride and I was sent for you. ” 

Sid could’nt understand why he could ride easier 
than any other boy. “ Can’t everybody ride ? ” he 
asked in a quick way he has when he is interested in 
anything. 

“ Oh, bless you, no,” said the Centaur ; “ very few 
indeed; it all depends on your mind. Most boys 
wouldn’t have seen me, much less kept on my 
back. ” 

Sid thought that was very queer, but he asked no 


102 


A Ride on a Centaur. 


more questions about it. He didn’t feel very well 
acquainted yet. 

“ Who sent you for me he continued at last. 

“ Chiron sent me,” answered the Centaur getting 
on his legs, “ and we must be off.” 

He put Sid on his back as before and started on a 
gentle canter. They were on the side of a mountain 
with here and there olive trees and pines. 

“ Where are we ? ” asked Sid after a moment. 

“ Is this Thes — Thes — ” 

“ Yes,” said the Centaur; “it’s Thessaly.” 

“ Where am I going ? ” 

“You are going to school,” replied the Centaur. 

That rather surprised Sid and didn’t entirely 
please him. He thought he had enough of school 
by daylight without going at night too, but he said 
nothing, thinking it certainly must be a new kind of 
school if they had to send so far for scholars, and 
wondering whether his father, who was a minister, 
would be able to pay the bills. 

The road which the Centaur took led them around 
the mountain and presently they came out into a little 
level space in the side of the mountain and in front 
of a cave. In the middle of this grassy place a Cen- 
taur was lying on his side, and around him were ten 
or more young men stretched full length on the 


A Ride on a Centaur. 


03 


ground and leaning on their elbows, in a half circle. 

' Sid slid down to the ground and slipped into the lit- 
tle group without being noticed. The Centaur in the 
middle was very old, so old that he looked as if he 
had been alive for centuries ; and he had a very wise 
and beautiful face. 

The young men were the most splendid fellows Sid 
had ever seen. They had beautiful forms and noble 
heads and fine, bright faces, and they had magnifi- 
cent arms and chests. They looked like heroes, and 
I think most of them were. 

This was the school and a very queer school it cer- 
tainly was. Sid was eight years old and went to a 
Kindergarten where he had books and blocks and all 
kinds of things and here they hadn’t so much as a 
scrap of paper. He was inclined to think it must be 
a poor affair, but he thought he would wait until he 
had heard some of the recitations before he made up 
his mind. That was the queerest thing of all — there 
weren’t any recitations. No books, no desks, no 
black-boards, no recitations ! well, it certainly was a 
funny school. There wasn’t even a roll called. If 
there had been Sid would have heard some strange 
names. That great splendid fellow at the end of the 
line, with his curly hair all in confusion about his 
noble head, was called Hercules, and the next was 


104 


A Ride on a Centaur, 


Achilles and the next Theseus and then came Castor 
and Pollux, and Ulysses and Meleager and ^scula- 
pius and others whose names I have forgotten. 

While Sid was thinking about these things the old 
Centaur began to talk. His voice was very low and 
very sweet and somehow it made Sid feel that the 
teacher had seen everything there was to be seen in 
the world and knew everything there was to be 
known. School was evidently going to begin. 

“ I have told you, ” said the Centaur, very slowly, 
“ about the Gods and the old times when the world 
was young. I have told of heroes anoPof the great 
things they did. I have taught you music which the 
Gods love, and medicine which is useful for men. I 
have told you how to be strong and high-minded 
and noble. I have taught you to be brave and true 
that you may do great things for yourself and the 
world. By day I have made your bodies firm and 
sinewy, and at night I made you think of the Gods 
who live beyond the stars. What shall I tell you 
now 

Nobody spoke for a minute and then Ulysses, who 
had a very wise face for one so young, said : “ Tell 
us of yourself, oh, Chiron.” 

This seemed to please everybody and all the schol- 
ars repeated the words ; 


A Ride on a Centaur. 


105 


“Tell us of yourself, oh, Chiron. ” 

“ The Centaurs,” began Chiron after a little while, 
“ were born long before men came into the world. It 
was a rough place then and needed somebody stronger 
than men to live in it. So the Gods made us with 
the strength and swiftness of the animals and yet 
with some of the thoughts and feelings of men. And 
we lived in caves and ran through the valleys, and 
leaped across the rushing streams and climbed the 
mountains. And we learned many things about the 
world and made it easier for men when they came. I 
think we werg sent to do what animals couldn’t do 
and that now you are come and grown strong to con- 
quer even the animals, our work is done and we 
must soon die.” 

Just then a little bell rang. At first Sid thought 
school must be out, but the bell sounded very famil- 
iar to him. In fact it was the cuckoo clock in the 
front parlor striking nine. 

“Bless me, Sid,” said his mother; “you ought to 
have been in bed an hour ago.” 


OF BY- 


SOME BAD BOYS 
BURY. 

B YBURY village was quite famous, in my clay, 
for its smart boys — about a dozen of them, 
pretty near of an age, bright scholars, good fellows 
generally, and wide awake for any enterprise. 

There could be-.stories told about their adventures, 
their camping-out, their fishing and boating.trips, their 
many doings on land and water ; but I was not there 
to see. I was not one of them. 

Poor little Andy ! ” they called me, for I was a crip- 
ple. Perhaps it was because I could not run, nor 
climb, nor do anything, hardly, that 1 admired them 
the more. 

Fourth of July was their great day, of course; it 
is the boys’ day everywhere in this land of freedom. 
They began it by ringing a certain church bell the 
moment midnight struck, which was the signal for all 
io6 


Some Bad Boys of Bybury. 


roy 

the little cannons to blaze out. There were six 
churches in Bybury, and two of them had bells, 
which these youngsters had christened “ Liberty Bell,” 
and “ Prohibition Bell.” They were allowed to ring 
the former just as much as they pleased — and for 
that rea^n they did not care anything about it : they 
were forbidden to touch the other till sunrise of the 
Fourth — and for that Veason they were determined 
to begin with it on the midnight before ; and they al- 
ways managed to do it. 

Their only opposer was Captain Milliken, who had 
no motive in the world for the opposition, only once 
having said that he did not want it rung, he was 
bound to have his way — there are a good many such 
people. The boys liked the old gentleman, but they 
determined not to be beaten ; and when you take 
twelve boys against one man, you may be sure that 
there’s mischief ahead. His only right of refusal 
was in the fact that he was sexton, and also owned 
more pews in the meeting-house than any other man. 
However, from year to year the townspeople said, 

“ Let them ring ! It is a better way to celebrate than 
to use so much powder.” 

On this particular Fourth, Captain Milliken made 
great boasts that he had got the doors and windows so 
securely fastened that the boys would have to give it 


Soi7te Bad Boys of Byhury. 


loS 


up. That being equal to a challenge, no boy of any 
spunk, and certainly no Bybury boy, tvould give it 
up. The evening before the Fourth there was a mys- 
terious gathering in an unoccupied house near by ; 
and to this rendezvous one of the big boys, Tom Mil- 
liken, the Captain’s nephew, carried me on his back. 
“ Because,” said he, “ we want your help.” 

It turned out that they all intended to get about 
two hours’ sleep on some old carriage robes which 
they spread on the floor, and at half-past eleven sharp 
I was to call them and then wait orders. 

It was a lovely night, warm, dewy, starry, but so 
still ! The villagers had gone to bed early to have a 
little repose before the inevitable cannonading begun 
— they always did at Bybury, for there was no sleep 
after midnight in that neighborhood till- that set of 
boys had outgrown “ celebrating.” They seemed 
long hours to me, for, trusting to my known wakeful- 
ness, every boy of them had dropped off, and I sat 
curled up by a window with Tom’s watch in my 
pocket, till the time slipped by. 

Punctual to the moment I had them up; and after 
a whispered consultation they went out to try means 
of ingress, while I kept watch and was to signal if 
any one approached. 

It’s no good to try, for the Commodore ” — that 


So 7 ne Bad Boys of Bylncry. 109 

was what they called him — “ has been as good as his 
word. So now for it ! ” said Tom, at last, and pulling 
off his shoes and cap, he began to climb the light- 
ning-rod. 

If you do not know how the rods used to be put 
up on meeting-houses, you will not understand the 
foolhardiness of this proceeding. Instead of follow- 
ing the walls of the building — in which case the risk 
would have been fearful enough — the rod descended 
slanting in mid-air from the belfry, far out to the main 
building, so that for a long distance it was out in 
space, swaying at the least touch ; then from the eaves 
it run dov/n the side of the house, and then was sup- 
posed to be secured firmly in the ground. But this 
one had been broken off a yard or more at the bot- 
tom, so it was rather a shaky and uncertain thing at 
the best, besides being constructed in pieces which 
were hooked together in a loose way. It was rough 
and rusty, and about as large round as a man’s thumb. 
Such was the ladder by which Tom Milliken proposed 
to climb up to the high bell tower, on the dark side of 
the church, with no light to guide him except what 
^ came from the stars. 

Tom Milliken was not afraid of anything ; but now, 
when the boys saw him slowly going up, hand over 
hand, in the darkness, they began to realize what 


I lO 


Some Bad Boys of Bybury, 


a perilous feat it was, and begged in low voices : 

“ Tom ! Tom ! do come down ! Let’s give it up ! ” 
But Tom whispered back, “ Stop your noise ! take 
care of my cap and shoes, and stop your noise ! ’ 
Not a word was spoken after that. Almost breath- 
less the boys watched from below, holding fast the 
end of the rod to steady it, while I crept out and se- 
cured the cap and shoes. Meanwhile Tom gained the 
eaves, where he rested a few minute's before begin- 
ning the most dangerous part of the ascent. Slowly 
moving up, we saw his dark form against the sky ] 
then we lost sight of him as he swung into the shadow*; 
but in a moment he appeared climbing over the bal- 
ustrade into the belfry. 

I am sure we all felt like shouting our joy, but we 
kept silent and listened. Presently we heard him 
cautiously raising the trap door ; then creaking down 
the narrow, shaky stairs, which had long been con- 
sidered unsafe, but yet allowed to remain as they 
'i^were ; then he was blundering through the dark gal- 
hry j and at last he was fumbling at the hasp which 
secured the vestry door on the inside. 

Then they all rushed in, and old “ Prohibition 
Bell ” was rung as it had never been rung before — 
“ Ding-dong^ ding-dong f as fast as it could go, it 
sounded on the still midnight air, and was echoed 


Some Bad Boys of Bybury. 1 1 i 

back from the hills, rousing the whole village ; heads 
were popped out of windows along the street, and 
suppressed laughter was heard, for everybody knew 
how confident the Commodore had been. 

The boys had rung it furiously for about ten min- 
utes, and the Httle cannons had begun to speak on 
every corner, when from my watch-window I spied a 
lantern in the Commodore’s door-yard. In another 
minute I had scattered the ringers ; and by the time 
he had appeared on the scene of action with the 
blacksmith, whom he had routed from his bed, there 
was not a boy visible, except the small fellows with 
their cannons on the nearest cross street, who were un 
able to tell him anything, simply because they did not 
know. • 

The culprits, however, were all within hearing, 
and lost not a word of the old gentleman’s strong as- 
sertions, spoken loud on purpose for their ears, which 
he was shrewd enough to suppose were within hear- 
ing, that he would find out “ who they are ; and I’ll 
prosecute every one of them to the fullest extent of 
the law.” 

The two men searched everywhere, even to the bel- 
fry, from which their lantern shone like a beacon, and 
they tried every window and looked into every pew ; 


i i 2 Some Bad Boys of By bury. 

then, giving it up, the blacksmith put a padlock on 
the outer door, and they departed. 

The boys gave them just time enough to get home; 
then, at my sign, they started up from their hiding- 
places, and the bell began to toll, deep and strong 
and quick. Tom, who had planned for every pos- 
sible contingency, had carried in his pocket, when he 
climbed up, a strong cord wound round a pebble 
to which one end was secured ; the other he had tied 
to the clapper of the bell ; then, unwinding, he had 
hurled the stone back down over the sheds ; and now 
they were using this strong cord with a will. 

The bell had boomed furiously for a few minutes, 
when the lantern appeared again in the Commodore’s 
yard, and back he came with his companion. They 
found the church all right — not a window unfast- 
ened, and every door secure ; so re-locking the outer 
ones, they proceeded to an inspection of the sheds. 
But while they were still in the vestibule, bending 
over the inner lock, Tom had slipped in and hidden 
himself in the wood closet. It did not require much 
searching on the part of the men to find the cord, 
which they tried to break by their united efforts, and 
succeeded by sawing it along the edge of the roof. 

And now the sexton was so sure that the bell 
would be at rest for the remainder of the night that 



THE COMMODORE MAKES SUHE 





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Some JB ad Boys of Bybii?y. 115 

he laughed at the blacksmith when he proposed 
that they should sit on the meeting-house steps with 
their lantern and watch till daybreak, which was 
not very far off. He dispersed the small boys, 
bidding them, “ Go home and go to bed, and come 
again at sunrise, then / will ring the bell myself ; and 
you may all ring till your hands are blistered. As for 
those rascals,” raising his voice, “ if they have broken 
so much as a pane of glass in this house, I will have 
the law on them to-morrow ! ” 

The boys had a pretty busy night of it, but they 
were not through yet. As soon as the familiar 
lantern had vanished in the Commodore’s house, a 
window in the church was gently raised, a dark lan- 
tern in Tom’s hand shone a moment there was 
a good deal of climbing in an out, of low talking, and 
the sound of tools being used, and certain other 
sounds, strongly suggesting that something was going 
on in the belfry. Then the boys dispersed just 
at daylight, agreeing to keep watch and see what 
happened next. 

Promptly at sunrise came the sexton, and a crowd 
of small boys at his heels ; a few men, too, had 
lounged along to the church steps, and looked in as 
he threw open the doors. 

“ And now,” shouted the Commodore, “ you may 


1 1 6 Some Bad Boys of Bybury 

have all the ringing you want. This is early 
enough for all orderly folks ! ” 

So the little fellows snatched at the rope, and 
jerked with all their might — with no result. 

“ Oh ! clear out ! ” said he, “ and see me do it ! 
'rhere ! Thafs the way to ring ! ” pulling with one 
vigorous sweep of his right arm, which drew the rope 
clear to the floor ; and so he kept on for a minute or 
two, a puzzled expression coming over his face ; then 
suddenly he called to the men\ outside. “ Seems to 
me this bell don’t ring, or else I have gone deaf all 
at once ! Hey ? ” 

“ No,” cried one of the small boys, “ ’tain’t mak- 
ing no sound. Captain.” 

The Commodore pulled and tugged, then took off 
his coat and worked away till his face was in a blaze, 
and beads of perspiration rolled down his cheeks. 

“ Those young rascals ! ” he said, “ They must 
have tied the clapper.” Upon which, two men vol- 
unteered to go up and see. They soon returned with 
the intelligence that the clapper was ^‘gone en- 
tirely.” But the Commodore could not believe it, or 
was so obstinate that he zvould not till he had the 
evidence of his own eyes. Sure enough — gone it 
was. 

Nor did it re-appear in its proper place till the 


Some Bad Boys of Bybury. 1 1 7 

next Saturday night. When the sexton went to ring 
for church on Sunday morning, there it was, as if 
nothing had happened. Of course it made the talk 
of the town, and everybody thought that Bybury 
village had some rather remarkable boys. They 
were now given full permission to ring that bell as 
much as they w^anted to at midnight before every 
coming Fourth of July as long as they lived ; but be- 
cause they could do it, they did not care to, and never 
did, after that memorable occasion. And their secret 
has been kept all of these years — the boys are now 
men — and nobody knows to this day who took that 
clapper off and put it on again. 


MISS VIOLET. 


“ mother dear, you will, you must let me 

W go!” 

“ I don’t see how I can, Mary. In the first place, 
'I don’t approve of your visiting where you will get 
such high notions in your head as you will be sure 
to get at Mrs. Van Voorst’s ; and, in the second place, 
you have nothing suitable to wear at such a place. 
Oh, Mary, don’t tease me ; I don’t want you to go, 
for I know it will be bad for you in the end. You 
will get accustomed to a life that is just as much 
separated from yours as the Queen of England’s, 
and when you come back you will be discontented 
and pining for what you have left behind.” 

“Mother, it is Violet Van Voorst herself that I 
want to visit a great deal more than anything else, 
though I shall enjoy beautiful Newport, too. And 
ii8 


Miss Violet. 


tl9 

it’s so kind of her mother to wish to give me this 
pleasure ; and she wants me, too, not merely out of 
kindness but because she loves me.” 

Mrs. Harwood knitted her brows slightly. She 
had seen a good deal of trouble, and perhaps that 
was the reason she had for looking down on school- 
girl friendships. 

“ If Miss Violet Van Voorst loves you so much, 
why didn’t she come oftener to see you when 
she was at school here ? ” she asked her eager 
daughter presently, and a little bitterly, perhaps. 

“ Mother, you always discouraged my bringing her 
home with me after that once, you know,” answered 
Mary Harwood a little shyly. 

“Well, I dare say I did, Mary; for that once, as 
you call it, was rather an unfortunate visit. There 
was nothing in the world for tea but cold bread and 
butter and cookies, and I remember that the boys 
had come in and flung all their fishing-tackle in the 
front entry.” 

“ But Violet was so pleased with everything, 
mother. You know how she praised your bread, 
and that delicious butter of ours, and how she apolo- 
gized for eating so many cookies ; and when you 
spoke of the boys’ fishing-tackle she laughed, and 
said it was just like her brothers.” 


120 


Miss Violet,. 


^‘Oh, your Miss Violet knows how to say polite 
things, Mary; but, all the same, I shouldn’t care to 
be patronized by a fashionable young lady,” returned 
Mrs. Harwood laughing a little, but quite in earnest. 

Mary did not reply. It was of no use she said to 
herself, for mother did not understand .Violet, and 
would be sure to think she did the wrong thing. 
After this conversation she was no little surprised the 
next morning to hear her mother say : 

“ Mary, I have thought that perhaps I am not do- 
ing right by keeping you from visiting Violet Van- 
Voorst. You are sixteen, now, and ought to face 
things for yourself, I dare say, and to see all sides. 
I didn’t mean to be hard last night ; but I don’t like 
fashionable life and its follies, and I hated to think 
of my sensible Molly being hurt by them. But I 
have come to think if you want to go so much, child, 
perhaps it is better that you should, else you may 
think all your life that your cross, old mamsey has 
made you miss what you can never make up.” 

“ O, mamsey darling, you’re never cross. I know 
you are always thinking of my good, and this — O, 
mamsey — this is so just and kind of you !” 

The mother and daughter kissed each other, and 
then the happy Molly flew off to commence her little 
preparations for her visit to lovely Newport and Vio- 


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Miss Violet. i ^3 

let Van Voorst. But, first of all, she must write to 
her friend that her kind invitation was accepted, and 
what day and hour she might expect her. 

When Miss Violet received this letter she was 
standing on the lawn of her summer home at New- 
port, waiting for her pony-phaeton, and chatting to a 
very handsome young girl about her own age. 

“ A letter for you. Miss Violet,” said a groom, 
doffing his hat as he handed out Molly Harwood’s 
neat little missive. 

Violet tore open the envelope and glanced rap- 
idly down the page. 

“ Oh, she is coming ! I was so afraid that she 
wouldn’t,” she exclaimed joyfully after this glance. 

“Who’s coming, if I may ask, Vy ? ” inquired Miss 
Margie Dearborn. 

“Mary Harwood, a dear girl I knew when I was 
at Sherwood School. She was a day scholar, and 
used to walk over from Hollingsford, a distance of 
three miles, every morning, and back at night.” 

“ Why did she do that ? For her health } ” 

“ Because they had no horses or carriages. Miss 
Margie.” 

“ Oh ! I thought all the people who lived in the 
country had horses, or at least one horse, Vy,” com- 
mented Miss Margie rather wonderingly. 


124 


Miss Violet. 


“ All farmers do, I suppose, but Mary Harwood 
was not a farmer’s daughter. Her father was dead, 
and she and her mother and little brothers lived in a 
little country town — Hollingsford, three miles from 
Sherwood. They were not rich people at all. I 
sometimes used to think they might be quite poor ; 
but Mary was so nice, the nicest girl in school. I 
want you to call upon her when she is here, Margie, 
and be very sweet to her.” 

Margie nodded her head carelessly, with a pleas- 
ant “ of course ” to her friend’s request, an,d the 
next moment the two girls were bowling along the 
avenue in the pretty basket phaeton_, Violet holding 
the reins with a practised hand. 

Three hours later, as the Providence boat steamed 
up to the Newport wharf, Mary Harwood, looking 
anxiously from the forward deck, saw the basket 
phaeton and its pretty owner, with the natty little 
groom in the little back seat — or, properly speaking, 
the rumble of the carriage. All the way in the cars 
and in the boat, Mary had been anticipating this 
meeting with her friend with unalloyed pleasure \ 
now, as she caught sight of the stylish turnout, with 
the glittering, many-buttoned little groom perched 
on guard as it were, there flashed over her, involun- 
tarily, all the things her mother had said in regard 


9 


Miss Violet. 


125 


to the difference in her life and that of this lovely 
Miss Violet. One thing specially came to her — al- 
most the last thing her mother had said to her : 

“ You mustn’t expect, Mary, that a girl situated 
like Violet Van Voorst will continue to feel the inter- 
est in you that she does now. You are new and 
fresh to her just now, but when she is fully launched 
in the gay world where she belongs, you must make 
up your mind to lose her.” 

When Mrs. Harwood had said this Mary had reso- 
lutely refused to believe it, though she spoke not a 
word to her mother of her rebellious state of mind. 
But now, in sight of Violet, transformed into such a 
gay little princess, sitting there as if. upon a little 
throne with her body-guard, her mother’s warning 
words came back upon her with a cold chill, and not 
even the princess’ bright face and warm kiss of wel- 
come could quite restore her old feeling of trust and 
happiness. 

And it was this feeling that, like a vague shadow, 
seemed to be perpetually looking over her shoulder, 
and clouding the sunshine all through the first days 
of her visit. In these days her letters to her mother 
were mostly made up of descriptions of Newport — 
the cliffs, the glen, the famous old fort, and the rest 
of the fascinations of the historic old town. 


126 


Miss Violet. 


And Mrs. Harwood, reading these letters and ob- 
serving how little was said of her “dear Violet,” and 
the Van Voorst family, commented to herself in this 
style, after her critical, suspicious fashion : 

“Poor little Molly! it’s just as I knew it would be. 
She’s finding out that when fashionable people are 
in their own world, they don’t need simple little folk 
like her, who have no fine feathers, to reflect credit 
upon them. It is as well, perhaps, that she should 
learn this early, but -I do hope they won’t make her 
unhappy.” 

But while Mrs. Harwood was making up her mind 
to these dismal conclusions, Mary was learning quite 
another lesson than her mother supposed, and on 
the third week of her visit, just a week after the 
third of the series of letters which had convinced 
Mrs. Harwood that her prophecies were being ful- 
filled, the good lady was astonished by the receipt of 
the following: 

Dear Mother : I have waited until now before 
1 said anything about Violet herself and the home- 
life here, for I wanted to be certain sure — as I used 
to say when I was a little girl — of the reality before 
I gave my opinion or criticism ; for you know you 



AT THE VAN VOOHSTS’. 

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Miss Violet. 


129 


were always warning me not to jump at conclusions 
in my enthusiasm. 

“ Well now, dear mamsey, I am going to begin at 
the very beginning and tell you everything. Violet 
met me as I told you at the boat. But as I have 
not told you, suddenly, when I first caught sight of 
her sitting in that elegant little phaeton, with the 
sleek pony all a-glitter in the silver- mounted harness, 
and the smart groom perched up in the rumble, glit- 
tering like the pony, and Violet holding the long 
white reins in her long, white driving-gloves, it all 
came over me like a flash what you had said about 
the difference in our lives as it never had before, and 
there in the warm sunshine I felt as if a shadow had 
settled down upon me which would never lift ; for I 
felt as if you had guessed it all right — that Violet 
in her own world could not care for me as she had in 
dear old Sherwood, and I should find it out in a 
thousand ways. 

“ Even when the dear, pretty creature seized me 
and kissed me so affectionately a moment afterwards, 
I couldn’t put aside my misgivings. I kept thinking 
‘ Oh, if this is only the first glimpse of all the splen- 
dor what will the rest be, and what can a girl who 
lives in fairy-land want of a little plain country-girl 
like me? ’ 


130 . 


Miss Violet. 


“ Well, up from the boat we drove through the 
narrowest, queerest old street, right past a house 
where George Washington had his headquarters a 
hundred years ago, and crossing through still an- 
other narrow, old street we came to Bellevue avenue, 
and were presently at Violet’s home. I’ve told you 
before, mamsey, how beautiful it all was, with its vel- 
vet lawn, and its piazzas and long windows, and 
lovely furniture, partly of silk and partly of that ex- 
quisite Wakefield rattan manufacture. But I haven’t 
told you yet how as we went in and Violet’s mother, 
whom Violet always calls ‘ mamma,’ who was just 
then coming along the hall, stopped and put out her 
pretty, slim hand to me, and said she was pleased to 
see me and hoped I had a pleasant journey ; and how 
\ tJmi she seemed so pleasantly indifferent to me 
and to Violet, too, as if it was a nice, polite, little 
speech she might have said to anybody she had 
never heard of. 

“ And then directly after we had dinner in a great 
dining-room, with Florentine mosaics on the wall, 
and what seemed to me then a crowd of company. 
It was in reality an aunt and uncle of Violet’s who 
are staying here, and two other ladies and one gen- 
tleman who had been invited for that day. Of 
course they were all older than Violet and I, and so. 


Miss Violet. 


131 

of course, they talked of things that were of interest 
to themselves and that we didn’t know about, or 
that /didn’t at least. Well, like a foolish girl, I felt 
this, because it was so different from Sherwood ways 
where we girls were all in all ; or at Hollingsford 
where the young people are of so much consequence. 
Violet didn’t seem to mind it, however, and talked 
to me in her old way in an undertone. 

So things went on from day to day, Mrs Van 
Voorst, who is a very elegant and accomplished 
woman, going into society and entertaining at her 
own house not only fashionable but people distin- 
guished in different ways. I don’t know what I 
thought, but I suppose I expected to be taken notice 
of by these people, just as I used to be at Hollings- 
ford by Dr. Ryder and Professor Roy. But nothing 
of the kind occurred. They would speak to us pleas- 
antly, now and then, and now and then Violet would 
chat a little with one of them, but we were really 
treated a good deal like nice children ; and I, who 
had been used to ‘ speaking up ’ to everybody, and 
giving my opinion upon everything, from Tennyson’s 
poems to the latest theological discussions, and to 
think it very smart to do so, felt very much aston- 
ished that I was of no more importance, and I be- 
gan to have, by-and-by, a sober feeling that all this 


132 


Miss Violet. 


neglect was because of my being a little country 
girl, with no fine relations and no money. 

“ During this time several of Violet’s friends had 
been to see me — young girls like ourselves — but I 
didn’t feel at ease with them, for the reason that I 
had been cherishing a suspicious spirit ever since my 
arrival. 

“Well, to come now to the grand point. Last 
Wednesday, a week ago, Violet gave a lawn party. 
Stretching back of the house there is a beautiful 
great lawn, which is in full view of the sea, and on 
this various pretty tents were put up, croquet hoops 
set, and all kinds of lovely arrangements. It was a 
day party, of course, and I wore my white dress with 
pink ribbons, and rosebuds from the greenhouse 
which Violet brought to me. Then I took the black 
velvet off of my white straw hat, and plaited that 
old white lace scarf that you gave me about the 
crown, and twisted up the ends with a knot of roses 
and pink ribbon. Violet was delighted with the ef- 
fect, and I think, mamsey, I did look very well. 

“ And I felt pretty well, too, and had a very nice 
time until Margie . Dearborn, Violet’s next-door 
neighbor here, started a new game or play, which 
somebody brought from abroad recently, called 
‘The Ambassador.’ I won’t explain it in detail 


Miss Violet, 


>33 


now, but will just say that one has to know some- 
thing of geography and French to answer the ques- 
tions and be a successful player. Well, though I 
can read French quite well you know I can’t speak 
it, and geography is one of my weak points. 

' “ Foolishly enough I had allowed Margie Dearborn, 
the week before, to think I was a very fine linguist. 
She had found me reading a French newspaper, and 
something she said, I’ve forgotten what, irritated me 
in my suspicious mood, and I replied, ‘ I shouldn’t 
think I knew much if I didn’t understand French. 
It’s a great deal easier than the English language,’ 
which is true, of course, in one way ; but Margie 
thought I meant it in quite a different way — that of 
being complete mistress of it. 

“ Well, we went on swimmingly in ‘ The Ambassa- 
dor ’ until I had to pay a forfeit. Then I was sent 
to France as the Spanish ambassador. ‘From what 
country do you come ? ’ I was asked. Then, ‘ What 
is the capital } ’ 

“ And, O, mamsey ! I answered ‘ Granadal 

“Only think of it; and there was Mrs. Van Voorst 
and her sister and two or three other ladies looking 
on. 

“ The next thing, I was addressed in French and 
expected to answer in that language. Simple phrases 


134 


Miss Violet 


enough ; for all these girls talk Frepch very readily, 
because they have had French bonnes or nurses, and 
most of their mothers have French maids, and have 
lived abroad some time. But I couldn’t answer a 
word, for I couldn’t understand them, and forgot 
what little I did know. 

“ Oh, mamsey ! I thought* I should sink through 
the ground with mortification as I caught Margie 
Dearborn’s eye, and as I faced all of them so stu- 
pidly — Violet’s friend, of whom she had talked so 
admiringly, as I knew she had ! 

“And just then when a great wave of color was 
blazing into my cheeks, Violet came forward and 
said softly, ‘ The Spanish ambassador has not been 
to France before, and he cannot understand our rapid 
careless French though he can read it better than we 
can.’ 

“ And then mamsey — then what do you think 
Mrs. Van Voorst whom I thought such an indifferent 
fine lady, did? — she rose and came forward and 
said sweetly, ‘And I must break up the court at 
once, and take the Spanish ambassador and all the 
rest of this fine company to the banquet that is 
served for them,’ ai^’ she slid my hand over her arm 
and smiled down upon me like an angel of good- 
ness. And she took us " he whole length of the gar- 


Miss . Violet. 


'35 


den, manisey, to give time for one of the men to whom 
she spoke to hurry up the supper — for it wasn’t 
nearly ready, though she had pretended that it was, 
just out of pure kindness to save me from any further 
mortification. And when supper was really served 
in the big tent, all the girls followed her example and 
were just as pleasant and kind to me as possible. 

“ Afterwards when I was alone with Violet, I 
thanked her for her sweetness and told her how' 
much I appreciated her mother’s kindness to me, and 
I confessed to a good deal of my own foolish feeling 
too. And Violetrmamsey, looked at me in amaze- 
ment, and said to me, ‘ Oh, Molly, don’t praise me, for 
trying to retrieve my great blunder.’ 

“ I asked her what she meant, and then she told 
me that she ought not to have allowed ‘ The Ambassa- 
dor ’ to be played, because she knew that I couldn’t 
speak French fluently, but that she forgot for the 
moment. ‘ And mamma was so displeased with me,’ 
she went on eagerly — ‘she said that she wouldn’t 
have thought I could have been guilty of such a 
rudeness to my guests, as to allow a game to be 
played in which they might be mortified.’ 

“ Oh, Mamsey, does’nt this prove how much in the 
wrong I have been in my suspicious judgments? 
There are, of course, people in high position who are 


136 Miss Violet. 

not ladies or gentlemen, but the Van Voorsts are not 
of this kind. They are “real people ” Mamsey, who 
believe in the best things ; and it needed just this 
experience to show me what they were, and to remove 
the little scales of prejudice from my eyes, that I 
might see that under all the smooth, elegant surface 
which I thought lacked our country heartiness, there 
was really the most delicate courtesy. I thought 
sharply, the Hollingsford girls would have joked and 
teased any one, placed as I was — their own fault, 
partly, too. I can see very plainly that these little 
' ceremonies and fine manners, which at first seemed 
to keep me at a distance, are really helps oftentimes 
to the real, polite feeling towards others. 

“ Mamsey dear, I am coming home to you next 
week, with not a bit of envy for all this new life, but 
with a new idea for the old life, for which I shall 
always be better, as I shall always be your loving 

Molly.” 

When Mrs. Harwood came to the end of this long 
letter, there were tears in her eyes. She spoke 
softly : “The child is right, she will always be the bet- 
ter for this experience ; and so shall I, for I shan’t 
make up my mind quite so hastily again about the 
‘other side.’ ” 


JIM’S TROUBLES. 



KNOW he didn’t 
do it,” said good Mrs. 
Martin ; “ he says he 
didn’t do it, and I be- 
lieve him.” 

“ Then you don’t be- 
lieve me ? ” asked Mrs. 
Turner rather severely. 
“ I wish I had never 
seen that boy ! I’m sure 
I have done my best by him, and been a mother 
to him. And now he’s turned out bad, everj^body 
blames me for it. Father says, if he has done it, 
it is my fault for tempting him ; Nelly has nearly 
cried her eyes out about it ; and everybody seems to 

137 


y ini's Troubles. 


>38 

think it is more wicked to loose a spoon than to steal 
it — I declare they do.” 

“ Well, he’s been a good, honest boy ever since he 
came here — a real nice, obliging, pleasant spoken 
little fellow ; and it stands to reason a good boy 
don’t turn bad all in a jerk like that,” said Mrs. 
Martin, shaking her head. 

“ I don’t know about jerks,” answered Mrs. 
Turner, “but I do know that, as soon as I had done 
cleaning that spoon, I put it back in the case, and 
as I was a-going to put it away, Jim comes in to get 
a pail, and says he, ‘ ain’t it a pretty little box ! ’ and 
says I: ‘yes, but what’s in it is prettier.’ Then I 
smelt my bread a-burning, and I put down the case 
right here,” said Mrs. Turner striking the corner of 
her kitchen table, “ and I ran to see to my bread, 
and when I came back Jim was gone, and my spoon 
was gone too. And I don’t suppose it walked off 
itself — do you } ” 

“Of course it didn’t,” said Mrs. Martin; “but 
some one else might have come in, or it may be 
somewhere ” — 

“ I’d like to know where that somewhere is, then,” 
said Mrs. Turner ; “ I have looked high and low and 
turned the house upside-down for a week, and . I 
haven’t seen any spoon yet, And nobody could 


ybn's Troubles. 


*39 


come in without my seeing them because the front 
door was locked and so was the kitchen door, and 
anybody who came in or went out had to go through 



OPINIONS DIFFER RESPECTING JIM. 

the back kitchen where I was. I saw Jim go out 
with his pail, but I didn’t spspect anything then — why 
should I ? And it isn’t the spoon I mind so much, 
it’s the trouble, and the idea of that boy that had 
been treated like one of the family — but I won’t 
say anymore about it. I’ll send him back to New 
York, and ” — » 


140 


yim's Troubles. 


“ No_, don’t do that ! I guess I’ll take him,” said 
Mrs. Martin. “ He hasn’t any home to go to, and if 
you send him back, there’s no telling what will be- 
come of him. Where is he } ” 

“ I guess he is sulking about the place some- 
where,” said Mrs. I’urner. “ He said he hadn’t 
done it, and now he won’t say another word. I’ll 
call him if you really want him.” 

Mrs. Martin said she really wanted him, and Mrs. 
Turner, stepping out on the kitchen porch, called out, 
“Jim, Jim!” 

There was no answer, but pretty soon a boy 
walked across the yard toward the house, and stopped 
near the porch. 

He was a boy about twelve years old, tall of his 
age and rather thin, and with a round, honest face, 
which looked very pleasant when he was happy, but 
which was at that moment very much clouded. 

“ I’ll speak to him by myself, if you don’t mind,” 
said Mrs. Martin, shutting the door and seating her- 
self on the porch step. 

“ Come here, my boy,” said she kindly, while her 
homely face looked almost beautiful with goodness. 
“ I don’t believe you are a bad boy ; I think it’s all a 
mistake, and it will come out all right some day. I 


yim^s Troubles. 


i4f 

am going to take you home -with me, if you will 
come.” 

Jim’s brown eyes brightened, but he answered, not 
very gratefully, “ Thank you, but I’d better go away 
from here — they all believe I took it.” 

“ No, they don’t; I don’t for one. You had bet- 
ter stay and behave like a good, honest lad, and I’ll 
be a true friend to you. Besides, we mustn’t run 
away from our troubles ! you know they are sent to 
make us good and strong, don’t you see, my boy ? ” • 

Having finished her little sermon, Mrs. Martin 
got up and gave Jim a motherly hug and a kiss. 
And poor Jim “broke down” as he would have 
called it. But it was a breaking down that did him 
a world of good, aud made a new boy of him. 

“There, there,” said Mrs. Martin, “now go and 
get your things, and we will go home.” 

Jim went up-stairs quietly to the little attic room 
that had been his own for two years. He made a 
small bundle of his old clothes. He wouldn’t take 
the new ones. “ They was my friends when they 
got them for me,” he said to himself, “ but now they 
ain’t my friends any more, and them clothes don’t 
belong to me now.” 

Jim’s grammar was not perfect, but he meant well, 
and in his heart he was very sorry to leave the 


142 


yim's 2'roiibles. 


friends who had been so kind to him during two 
hajDpy years. 

As he turned to go down-stairs_, he heard a noise 
in the hall, not far from him, and he saw Nellie 
Turner who seemed to be waiting for him. “ Oh ! 
Jim,” she said, and could not say more, because she 
began to cry. 

Poor little Nelly had been breaking her hearr about 
Jim’s trouble. She was a nice little girl ten years 
old, with bright yellow curls, pink cheeks, and blue 
eyes ; but now the pink of her cheeks had run into 
her eyes, and she did not look as pretty as usual. 
But Jim thought she was beautiful, and her red 
eyes were a great comfort to him. 

At last he spoke, Good-by, Nelly ; I am going 
away.” 

I know it,” said Nelly, “but, Jim, I don’t be- 
lieve you are bad, and you will be good, won’t you ? ” 

“Yes, I will,” said Jim. Then he left Nelly cry- 
ing on the stairs, and went quickly to the porch 
where Mrs. Martin was waiting for him. 

“Well, good-by, Jim,” said Mrs. Turner. “I hope 
you’ll be a good boy. Remember I have been kind 
to you.” 

“Yes’m, thank you,” said Jim, rather coldly. He 


JinCs Troubles. 


wanted to see “ Father,” but Mr. Turner had taken 
himself out of the way. 

While Mrs. Martin was walking home with her 
little friend, and talking to him to cheer him up, they 
heard something running after them, and Jim said, 
“ Here is Spot, what shall I do ? I am afraid I can’t 
make him go back.” 

“ Well, we’ll take him home, too,” said Mrs. Mar- 
tin. “ I like dogs, they are such faithful friends ; 
they don’t care if people are pretty or ugly, rich or 
poor, good or bad, they just love them, and stick to 
them. Yes, we will take Spot, and make him 
happy. ” 

This remark made two people very happy. Jim 
brightened up, and laughed; and Spot, who had 
kept his tail between his legs in a most respectful 
and entreating manner, now began to wag it joyfully, 
and showed his love by nearly knocking down Mrs. 
Martin, to let her know that he understood what she 
had said, and approved of it. 

Spot had been given to Jim by one of his school- 
mates, and Jim was very proud of his only piece of 
personal property. Spot was a white dog with a 
great many black spots all over him, and he was not 
exactly a beauty, but he was the best, lovingest, 
naughtiest, and most ridiculous young dog that ever 


144 


yim^s Troubles. 

adorned this world. He was always stealing bones, 
and old boots and shoes, and burying them in secret 
places as if they had been treasures, and no one had 
the heart to scold him much, because he looked so 
repentant and as if he would never, no never, do it 
again as long as he lived. 

Since the silver spoon had disappeared. Spot had 
been very unhappy ; people seemed to give him all 
the benefit of their disturbed tempers. Mrs. Tur- 
ner spoke crossly to him, and would not let him 
stay in the kitchen ; Mr. Turner had slyly kicked 
him several times ; Nelly cried over him when he 
wanted to play, and Jim only patted his head, and 
said, poor Spot, poor Spot ! ” by which he meant, 
“poor Jim, poor Jim!” But now Spot felt that a 
good time was coming, and he rejoiced beforehand, 
like a sensible dog. , 

And, in truth, a pretty good time did come. Jim 
was not entirely happy, because he could not prove 
his innocence, but he found that no one had been 
told of his supposed guilt. 

Mrs. Turner had not said a word about her rhissing 
spoon to any one. “ I will give him another chance 
to begin .right,” she had said to her husband. And 
Mr. Turner had replied, “ I don’t believe he took it 


yirn’s Troubles. 


H5 

any more than I did ; so what’s the good of making a 
fuss about nothing ? ” 

No fuss had been made ; but Mrs. Turner had 
said to her little daughter, whfen she started for 
school the morning after Jim’s departure_, “Nelly, 
you must be careful not to say a single word to any- 
body about Jim. But I don’t want you to ask him 
to come here, and it’s just as well for you not to 
play with him much.” 

“ It is too bad,” said Nelly. But she was an 
obedient little girl, and the first time Jim came to 
school, wh^n she saw that he hardly dared to look at 
her she thought that it would be better to tell him 
the truth. 

So at recess she called him, and asked him to go 
with her on the road, where no one would hear them ; 
then she said : 

“Jim, I want to tell you something. Mamma 
told me I must not ask you to come to the farm any 
more, and that I must not play with you much, and 
so I won’t do it. But I like you just the same, and 
I will give you an apple every day to say we are 
friends.” 

Nelly was as good as her word. Every morning, 
at recess, she gave Jim a small red and yellow “ lady- 
apple,” which she had rubbed hard to make it shine, 


146 


yiin's lyoubles. 


and which was one of the two apples her father gave 
her when she went to school ; and the “ lady-apples” 
were all kept for her, because she said they were so 
good and so pretty — “ just like iny little girl,” Mr. 
Turner said. 

And what do you suppose Jim did with his 
apples ? 

Eat them. No, not he ! 

Every time Nelly gave him an apple, he put it in 
his pocket and took it home. Then in the evening 
before going to bed, he made a hole in it — the ap- 
ple, not in the bed — and strung it on a piece of 
twine which hung from a nail in the window-sash in 
his little room. 

The poor apples got brown, and wrinkled, and dry, 
but they were very precious to Jim, but every one of 
them said to him, as plain as an apple can speak : 
“ I like you just the same.” 

And so the winter passed away quietly. Mrs. 
Martin became very fond of Jim ; she said he was 
so smart and so handy about the house she didn’t 
know what she would do without him, and she didn’t 
think boys were any trouble at all. 

But, alas, how little we know what may happen ! 

Spring had come, and house-cleaning had come 
with it. Mrs. Martin had a nice “ best-room ” 


like you just the same! I LIKE YOU JUST THE SAME 



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yim’s Troubles. 


14; 

which she never used except for half an hour on 
Sunday afternoons during the summer, and which 
was always as clean as clean can be. But in spring, 
it had to be made cleaner, if possible \ summer 
could not come till that was done. 

So the carpet was taken up, shaken, and put down 
again, and as Jim had helped in the shaking, Mrs. 
Martin kindly invited him to come in, and admire 
the room. 

“What a pretty room it is ! ” said Jim; “ why don’t 
you live in it ? ’’ 

“ Because it would wear out the carpet, and it is 
more comfortable in the sitting-room ; ” answered 
Mrs. Martin. Then she showed him a few books, 
boxes, and other works of art which were spread out 
on the big round table, and Jim admired everything. 

Among Mrs. Martin’s treasures, there was a brown 
morocco “Keepsake,” containing a pair of scissors, 
a silver thimble, and a needle-case. It had belonged 
to Mrs. Martin’s little daughter who had died sev- 
eral years before, and when Mrs. Martin went into 
the best-room on Sunday afternoons she always 
opened the Keepsake,” and thought of the little 
hands that had played with it, long ago. And now 
as a reward of merit, she showed it to Jim. 

“ It is the prettiest thing I ever saw ! ” said Jim ; 


150 Jim's Troubles. 

“when I am rich I will give Nellie Turner one just 
like it.” 

“ She will have to wait some time, I guess,” said 
Mrs, Martin, laughing. 

Then they looked at the pictures of George Wash- 
ington shaking hands with nobody, and of his wife, 
looking very sweet and handsome. 

“You are so great at stringing up things, Jimmy,” 
said Mrs. Martin with a funny look, I want you to 
hang up these pictures for me, will you ? ” 

“I will,” said Jim, blushing a little as he thought 
of his string of apples ; “ I will do it next Satur- 
day.” 

Jim kept his promise. The pictures were hung in 
the best light and made the room look so much pret- 
tier, that even Spot, who had been a silent observer, 
could keep still no longer, and barked his approba- 
tion. ■ Then the blinds and windows were closed, the 
door locked, and the best-room was left to quiet and 
darkness. ' • ' ' 

The next day being Sunday,*- Mrs. . Martin paid 
her usual afternoon visit to the best-roonr. ‘ .She ad- 
mired the pictures a little while, then she went to the 
round table to take up the Keepsake ; but the Keep- 
sake was not there. * - / . ‘ , ’ . 

. She looked all over the lab’e and^ under it, be- 


yim's Troubles. 


151 

hind every chair and in every corner, but she did not 
iind it. “ 1 wonder where it can be ? Perhaps I 
took it to the sitting-room without thinking,” said 
Mrs. Martin to herself. 

'She went back to the sitting-room and looked 
everywhere, but found no Keepsake. Then she sat 
down in her rocking-chair and tried to think about 
something else, but could only say to herself ; “ I 
wonder where it is ! ” 

Jim came into the room with a new Sunday-school 
book, which he began to read. Mrs. Martin looked 
at him while he read, but for some reason she did 
not say anything to him about the Keepsake. 

The next morning she put off her washing, and as 
soon as Jim had gone to school she began to search 
the whole house ; but no Keepsake did she find. 

“ It can’t be, it can’t be,” she said with tears in 
her eyes j “ but I must look in his room — perhaps 
he took it up to look at — he said it was so pretty.” 

Mrs. Martin went up to Jim’s room, but found 
nothing there except his clothes,, the apples, and a 
few little treasures such as boys have. 

Then she fell on her knees by Jim’s bed, and cried 
with all her heart. “ No, I won’t believe it till I 
have to,” she said at last. “ Poor boy ; it’s hard on 
him and he has been so good, too ! But I must speak 


152 


yim's Troubles. 

ta him about it, and if he has done wrong I must try 
to be patient with him.” 

When Jim came home from school in the after- 
noon, Mrs. Martin called him into the sitting-room. 

Come here, Jim,” she said ; “ I want to speak to 
you.” 

She had said it very kindly, but there was some- 
thing in her voice that made Jim feel a little 
queer. 

He came in and stood before her, and she said to 
him: “Jim do you know what has become of. that 
pretty Keepsake I showed you the other day ? I can’t 
find it anywhere, and I have looked and looked.” 

“No,” said Jim boldly, “I havn’t seen it since. I 
hope it isn’t lost.” Then he stopped, and his face 
blushed crimson. There was something in Mrs. 
Martin’s eyes, as well as in her voice, that reminded 
him of his trouble about the silver-spoon. 

“ Oh ! you don’t think ” — he cried out. 

But he could say no more — Mrs. Martin had him 
in her arms the next moment. 

“ No, I dofi't think,” she said, “ I don’t, my boy 1 
not for the world I wouldn’t ! only I can’t find it, 
and — -and — ” 

“ Let me look for it,” said Jim. 

They looked again together, but with no success. 


yim’s Troubles. 


- 153 


That night there were two heavy hearts in the quiet 
little house, and the next morning there were two 
pair of red eyes at the breakfast table. 

“You must not grieve so, Jim,” said Mrs. Martin. 
“ I hope it will all come out right ; we must try to 
bear it well, and go to work as if nothing had hap- 
pened.” 

But she could not follow her own advice, and the 
washing remained undone. 

Jim did not go to school, and spent his time look- 
ing everywhere in the orchard and in the garden, 
while Spot followed him, wondering what was the 
matter. 

No one had any appetite for dinner, and after try- 
ing in vain to eat a potato, Jim went up to his 
room. 

Mrs. Martin tried to sit still, and sew, but she 
could not bear it long ; and when she heard the 
children coming from school, she went to the gate to 
look at them ; they were so happy that it seemed to 
do her good. 

“ Is Jimmy sick ? ” asked little Nelly, stopping on 
her way. 

“No,” said Mrs. Martin; “but he’s been busy, 
and couldn’t go to school.” 

Nelly wanted to send him a nice russet apple she 


154 y ini’s Troubles. 

had kept for him, but she did not quite dare to do it 
because Mrs. Martin looked so sober, 

Jim heard her voice from his room, but he did not 
dare to show himself. “ She won’t like me just the 
same when she hears of this,” he thought ; and he 
felt as if he had not a friend in the world. “ I would 
give my head to find that thing,” he said ; “she don’t 
believe I took it, but she believes it too ; I shall 
have to go away from here, and I don’t care what 
becomes of me, anyway,” 

Mrs. Martin 5tood at the gate a little while watch- 
ing the children, then she went to the garden to look 
at her hot-beds — two large pine boxes in which 
lettuce, radishes, and tomatoes were doing their 
best to grow fast and green. 

When she came near the beds, she saw Spot 
stretched on the ground, enjoying an old bone, as 
she thought, 

“This won’t do. Spot,” she said; “ I don’t want 
you to bring your bones here. Go away ! ” 

Spot did not seem to mind her at all, so she came 
a little nearer to make a personal impression upon 
him with the toe of her shoe. 

Spot growded, and turned away his head a little, 
and as he did so, a little silver thimble fell out of the 
old bone and rolled upon the ground. 


yim's Troubles. i 

“ My Keepsake !” exclaimed Mrs. Martin. And, 
as she said afterward,, she was so taken by surprise 
you could have knocked her down with a feather. 

^ She waited half a minute to get her breath when 
she picked up the thimble and ran toward the house! 
calling with all her might: “Jim, Jim, here it is, 
' here, come ! ” 

Jim never remembered how he got down-stairs, 
but there he was staring at the thimble, and so happy 
that he couldn’t even begin to say a word. 

Mrs. Martin was just explaining to him: “you 
see it was 'Spot, and the bone, and the thimble 
fell out of it, and I knew it was not you ” — when 
they heard a big voice calling from the road : “Jim, 
Jim, come out here quick I ” 

They looked round, and saw farmer Turner run- 
ning as fast as such a fat man could run, and wav- 
ing something shiny over his head. 

“ Here it is 1 ” he said, “ here is that blessed 
spoon ! I was a-plowing in a corner of the orchard, 
when I turned up a soft stone made of red morocco, 
with a silver spoon in it. Didn’t I tell you so ? I 
never believed it. Hallo ! what’s the matter ? ” 

The matter w^as a most wonderful scramble. Mrs. 
Turner and little Nelly had run across lots, and here 
they were, talking, and laughing, and crying. Every- 


yUn^s Troubles. 


body hugged everybody else, and everybody was so 
glad she was so sorry, or so sorry she was so glad — 
farmer Turner vowed he couldn’t tell which it was 
most. « 

At last they made out that they were all very glad, 
and Mrs. Martin invited them all to stay to tea. 
They accepted the invitation, and such a tea-party 
never took place anywhere — 'not even in Boston — 
for the company had joy as well as hot biscuits, and 
happiness as well as cake. 

Spot was scolded and forgiven, and wagged his tail 
so hard that it is a wonder it didn’t come off. 

As for Jim, he got kisses enough that evening to 
last him for a lifetime. 

This is the true end to a true story, but not 
the last end by any means. 

For Jim is now a “ boy ” twenty-one years old, 
and Nelly “likes him just the same,” only a great 
deal more. 


POLLY’S TEMPTATION. 


P OLLY BAKER wanted a new doll. She did 
not go to her father or mother for money and 
then go to the store and buy one, but she went to the 
rag-bag and the button-box and her mother’s bureau- 
drawer where she kept the pieces left from her own 
and Polly’s dresses and the boys’ clothes, and got 
together a lot of odds and ends ; and, after sewing all 
day whenever she had any spare time, by evening 
she had quite a large rag-doll, with buttons for eyes. 
It did not look much like a real baby, but any one 
could see it was meant for a rag-doll. Somehow it 
did not please Polly as well as her former efforts in 
that direction had done. The black buttons gave its 
face a-wild, staring expression, and its cheeks and 
lips, which Polly had stained with pokeberry juice, 
were rather too startling in effect; and in short, 
although Polly had almost emptied the ink-bottle to- 
dye the place where the hair ought to be, and walked 
nearly a mile to get the pokeberries to make lips and 

157 


1^8 Polly's Te 7 nptation, 

cheeks, and pricked her little fingers till they were 
sore, she went to bed that night feeling very much 
disappointed. It was not any wonder, for Polly had 
resolved to call her new doll Estella, after a beautiful 
young lady who was visiting in the neighborhood. 
This lady was from New York. She had beautiful 
blue eyes, and long, golden curls. Polly knew she 
could not imitate the curls with black ink, but she 
was sadly disappointed in not finding some blue 
beads in the button-box. Polly keenly felt the ‘con- 
trast between her ideal and the real rag-baby. She 
certainly expected it to bear some faint resemblance 
to the beautiful lady. 

Polly lived in a log-house ; it had a chimney built 
on the outside after the fashion of Western log-houses. 
There was a porch on which Polly’s father and broth- 
ers sat in the evening when the work was done. 
There were morning-glories clambering all over the 
porch, and the sunflowers and hollyhocks standing in 
groups in the yard made the white-washed house, 
although it was built of logs, look cheerful and home- 
like. The bake-oven, where Polly’s mother baked 
such wonderfully white loaves of bread, and such 
delicious pies every Saturday, stood almost in the 
fence-corner, just leaving enough space for Polly’s 
play-house behind it. Here were Polly’s treasures. 


Polly's Temptation. 


^59 


There were rag-dolls of all sizes but sameness of 
feature, for Polly’s mother’s stock of buttons was not 
varied, and black ink and pokeberry juice was all the 
coloring matter Polly was acquainted with. On tiny 
shelves were pieces of dishes, of common ware, ex- 
cepting Polly’s company dishes, as she called them. 
Once there was a lovely china pitcher in the family, 
an heir-loom and a relic of better days. One day the 
cat jumped up on the table, and down came the beauti- 
ful pitcher dashed into fragments, and as Polly sprang 
to gather them up and carry them to her playhouse, 
her mother said : “ It’s an ill wind that blows nobody 
good.” Polly did not know exactly what that meant, 
but she had a faint idea, and was sure it was a good 
thing to have some china dishes for her doll’s tea- 
parties. There were chairs and sofas covered with 
moss that Polly renewed from time to time as it 
faded ; and she thought it looked as much like green 
velvet as the roses in Miss Estella’s bonnet did like 
real ones. Sometimes Polly got tired of playing 
alone, and occasionally Benny was good enough to 
forget he was a boy, and would play kindly with her j 
but sometimes he was not so amiable, and insisted 
upon having everything his own way, and then the 
dolls, instead of being harmless, benevolent ladies, 
mildly discussing the last apple-butter boiling they 


6o 


Polly's Temptation. 


had attended, or the relative beauties of the rising 
sun and shell pattern of quilts, were bands of hostile 
Indians starting out on the war-path. 

On those sad occasions Polly was obliged to take 
off their dresses and sew chicken-feathers on the top 
of their heads, while Benny put on the war-paint 
which was mud, or wheel-grease, or anything he hap- 
pened to fancy. One poor, white doll reserved for 
the purpose, would be bound to a stake, and Polly 
would be obliged to assist at the imaginary torture^ 
and help Benny to raise the war-whoop. It would be 
days before Polly could restore her dolls to their 
former loveliness. She had to cover them with clean 
muslin, and paint new cheeks and lips ; and some- 
times the ink would not hold out, and there would be 
several bald-headed dolls, and for a long time Polly 
would refrain from asking Benny to play with her. 

The little girl woke up the next morning after her 
unsatisfactory attempt at doll-making, feeling a vague 
sense of disappointment ; at first she could not think 
what was the matter. The sun was shining and the 
birds were singing in the apple trees. Pretty soon 
Polly gave a faint sigh and said softly, “ Oh yes, 
I know ! ” as she caught a glimpse of the unlucky 
Estella lying in the corner. She had no time to stop 
and think much about it for she was the only little 


ABOUT TO START ON THE WAR PATH. 





V 


Polly* $ Temptation, 1^3 

girl her mother had, and there was almost always 
something for her to do. She could set the table, 
wash dishes, and carry the milk down to the spring- 
house that stood at the foot of a little steep hill. 
The spring came out of the side of the hill, and a 
stream of delicious cold water ran through the trough 
in the spring-house where the crocks of milk were 
placed. Polly could churn, and liked it too, for she 
could stand outside the spring-house door under the 
willow tree and think over and plan what she would 
play when her work was done. The dolls were some- 
times sick children put to bed and given medicine, 
and sometimes they were ladies having an apple- 
butter boiling, or a quilting, or engaged in some other 
diversion that was fashionable in the neighborhood. 

Polly went about her accustomed tasks on this 
particular morning with a sober face, and the little 
feet did not move as rapidly as usual ; but the sober 
face grew bright before night, for Polly heard her 
father tell her mother that he was going to town the 
next morning with a load of wheat, and if she could 
spare Polly he would take her with him. Polly’s 
mother replied she would “see about it;” and Polly 
from experience knew that meant yes^ and so it 
proved. The wheat was all loaded the night before, 
and by sunrise the next morning Polly was enthroned 


164 Polly's Temptation. 

on the bags of wheat as happy as a queen. Her 
happiness was completed by being allowed to" wear 
her best dress, although it was completely covered by 
a clean checked apron. ^ 

It was a long ride, and Polly grew very hungry, for 
she had eaten her lunch of doughnuts in the early 
part of the day, as she was too much excited to eat 
her usual breakfast. After a time the journey ended, 
and Polly was left at the tavern while her father went 
to the mill to sell his wheat. The dinner, Polly 
thought, was magnificent, and she did not tire of 
admiring the red and yellow carpet that adorned the 
parlor, or the pictures of solemn-looking men who 
were supposed to be those of the ex-Presidents of the 
United States. Polly’s father came back looking 
very much pleased, for he had sold his wheat for 
much more than he expected. He gave Polly twenty- 
five cents and permission to go to the store and buy 
whatever she wanted with it. She wondered what 
she could do with so much money ; it seemed a vast 
fortune, for she never had had more than ten cents 
before at one time in all her life. There was almost 
everything to be had in the store, from dry goods and 
groceries down to candy and toys. 

Polly almost held her breath in amazement as her 
eyes fell on the most beautiful object she had evei 


Polly s Temptation. 


65 


seen. It was a wax doll with pink cheeks, blue eyes, 
and truly hair, as Polly called it. It was gorgeously 
arrayed in a pink silk dress and lace over-dress. 
Polly speedily made up her mind what to buy ; twenty 
five cents she thought would of course buy any 
doll. A boy came up to inquire what she wanted, 
and Polly asked the price of the doll. The boy 
replied two dollars. The little girl could not help 
the tears coming into her eyes, and she falteringly 
told the boy she thought she could buy it for twenty- 
five cents. 

“You must be from the country,^’ said the boy. 

“ Yes,’^ said Polly, not knowing the boy meant to 
make fun of her. “ I live sixteen miles from here.’^ 

The disappointed face finally touched the boy’s 
heart and he began to take an interest in the little 
stranger. They consulted over the merits and attrac- 
tions of various toys, but Polly could not decide ; 
finally the boy stumbled upon a home question that 
settled the matter : “ Did you ever,” asked the boy, 
“ have as much candy as you wanted ? ” 

Polly was free to confess that the one stick of 
candy that fell to her share whenever that precious 
article came into the family, was very far from satisfy- 
ing her appetite in that direction. “ Then I’ll tell 
you what I would do,” continued the boy, “ I’d spend 


i66 


Polly's Temptation. 


it all for candy, and have enough for once in my life.” 
Polly, after a few moments’ reflection, concluded to 
take the boy’s advice, so he wrapped a large package 
of candy, and Polly left the store with a happy heart. 
She went back to the tavern, and soon her father 
came and lifted her on the pile of empty bags, and 
they started home. 

After a while Polly found herself in some mysteri- 
ous way back in the store talking with the boy, and 
holding the doll in her hands. A woman came in to 
buy some calico, and while the boy went to the other 
part of the store to get it for her, Polly crammed the 
doll in her pocket and stole softly out of the door. 
She climbed into the wagon and was soon at home. 
Very soon she began to repent and heartily wish the 
doll was back in the store. She could not eat much 
supper, and felt too guilty and ashamed to talk much 
about her trip, or make satisfactory replies to her 
brother’s eager questions; for the journey to town 
was of such unfrequent occurrence that whichever 
child was favored was looked upon for a time as a 
returned traveller. 

Polly rose from her almost untasted supper and sat 
down in her mother’s old creaking rocking-chair and 
began to rock, and it began to say : “ Pol-1 y-stole-a 
dol-ly.” Polly stopped rocking ; but the clock took 


Polly's Temptation. 


167 


it up and ticked so plainly, “ Pol-ly-stole-a-dol-ly,’^ 
that she was frightened, for she thought all the family 
would understand it. She hurried out into the yard. 
The old white rooster flew up on to the fence, flapped 
his wings and stretched out his neck, and began, 
“ Did you kn-o-o-w-Pol-ly ” — Polly picked up a stone 
and threw it at the rooster with such fatal precision 
that it cut short the terrible revelation. He tumbled 
off the fence, and after fluttering around wildly in the 
grass for a few moments, he gave a gasp, curled up 
his claws and died. 

Polly picked him up and threw him over the fence 
as far she could among some weeds. She went to 
her play-house, and tugged at the wax doll to get it 
out of her pocket. She had just laid it on the sofa 
when she heard Benny coming whistling along to- 
wards the wood-pile. It would never do for him to 
see it ; there was no peace for her as long as she had 
that unlucky doll. It began to look disagreeable to 
her. Its wax cheeks had begun to melt, for Pol- 
ly had been sitting near the cooking stove ; the curls 
were dreadfully tangled by being carried so long in 
her pocket ; and the lace dress was rumpled and torn 
some. Polly thought it all over and made up her 
mind : she walked resolutely to the well and threw 
the wax-doll in. She went back to the house with 
part of the load off her mind. 


Polly's Temptation. 


1 68 

Pretty soon her mother asked Benny to go out and 
draw a bucket of water. It was getting dark and 
Polly’s mother lighted a candle. Benny came back 
soon — and Polly’s heart sank as she saw the ill-fated 
doll in the bucket of water. 

“Mercy on us,” exclaimed Polly’s mother, “what 
is this? ” 

All the family gathered around the dripping dolly 
that Benny was holding in his hand. 

“ Polly must know something about this,” said her 
mother. 

Oh, how Polly wanted to get up and run out of the 
house into the woods or the stable, or anywhere 
where nobody could ever see her again, but she could 
not stir. She could not speak. She could not even 
raise her eyes. 

Suddenly some one seized her by the arm and be- 
gan shaking her. “ Polly ! Polly ! ” said her father, 
“ wake up. We’ve got home at last. You’ve been 
asleep the past two hours.” 

Polly opened her eyes j the moon was shining, and 
she saw her mother and the boys waiting on the 
porch. She felt in her pocket in a bewildered way ; 
there was nothing there but her pocket-handkerchief, 
and the package of candy smelt so strongly of pep- 


Polly 5 Temptation. 169 

permint that Polly remembered it was candy and not 
the wax doll. 

Such a happy little girl as she was when she found 
all the horrible trouble was a dream ! She ate her 
supper and went out to the play-house and brought 
the despised Estella to her little bed-room, and after 
she had said her prayer she added these words : 

^^ “ Dear Lord I’m so glad I didn’t steal the wax 
doll j ” and then she went to sleep with a smile on 
her face and the rag doll clasped fast in her little 
freckled hands. 


A WONDERFUL TRIO. 


I N a little stone hut among the mountains lived 
Gredel and her son Peterkin, and this is how 
they lived : They kept about a dozen goats ; and all 
they had to do was to watch them browse, milk them, 
and make the butter and cheese, which they partly 
ate and partly sold down in the village, or, rather, 
exchanged for bread. They were content with bread, 
butter, and cheese ; and all they thought about was 
the goats. As for their clothes, it would be impossi- 
ble to speak of them with patience. They had no 
ambition, no hope, no thought beyond the day, and 
no sense of gratitude towards yesterday. So they 
lived, doing no harm, and effecting little good ; care- 
less of the future, and not honestly proud of any- 
thing they had done in the past. 

But one day Gredel (who was the widow of a 
shepherd that had dropped over the edge of a cliff) 
sat slowly churning the previous day’s milk, while 
Peterkin sat near her, doing nothing at all, thinking 
170 


A Wonderful Trio, 


171 

nothing at all, because he had nothing to ponder over, 
and looking at nothing at ail, for the goats were an 
everyday sight, and they took such capital care of 
themselves that Peterkin always stared away over 
their heads. 

“ Heigho ! ” suddenly exclaimed Gredel, stopping 
in her churning; and Peterkin dropped his stick, 
looked at his mother slowly, and obediently repeated, 
“ Heigho ! 

“The sun rises,” said Gredel, “and the sun sets ; 
the day comes, and the day goes ; and we were yes- 
terday, and we are to-day, and we shall be for some 
to-morrows ; and that is all, all, all.” 

Said Peterkin, “ Mother, what is there in the 
world ? ” 

“ Men and women,” repeated the wise parent ; 
“ goats, and many other things.” 

“ But is it the end of life to get up, watch goats, 
eat and drink, and fall asleep again ? Sometimes I 
wonder what is on the other side of the hill.” 

“ Who can say what is the end of life ? ” asked 
slow-thoughted Gredel. “ Are you not happy } ” 

“ Yes. But there is something more.” 

“ Do you not love me — your mother ? ” 

“ Yes. But still I think — think — think.” 

“ Love is enough,” said Gredel, who had passed 


I73 


A Wonderful Trio. 


more than half way through life, and was content to 
rest. 

Then it must be,” said Peterkin, “ that I want 
more than enough.” 

“ If so, you must be wicked,” remarked Gredel ; 
“for I am at peace in loving you, and you should be 
content in loving me. What more do you want ? 
You have enough to eat — a warm bed in winter — 
and your mother who loves you.” 

Peterkin shook his head. 

“ It will rain to-night,” said Gredel ; “ and you will 
be warm while many will be shivering in the wet.” 

Gredel was quite right ; for when the sun had set, 
and the heavens were all of one dead, sad color, 
down came the rain, and the inside of the hut looked 
very warm and comfortable. 

Nevertheless, Peterkin still thought of the some- 
thing beyond the mountain, and wondered what it 
might be. Had some wise one whispered in his ear, 
he must have learnt that it was healthy ambition, 
which helped the world and the worker at the same 
time. 

Soon it began to thunder, and Peterkin lazily 
opened the wooden shutters to look at the lightning. 

By this time Gredel, having thanked Providence 
for a large bowl of black bread steeped in hot goat’s 


A Wonderful Trio, ^ 73 

milk, was nodding and bobbing towards the flaming 
wood fire. 

“ Mother, mother ! here comes something from this 
world ! ” 

“ And what comes from the world ? ” 

“ Something like three aged women, older than 
you are a very great deal. Let me wait for another 
flash of lightning. Ha ! The first has a big stick \ 
the second has a great pair of round things on her 
eyes ; and the third has a sack on her back, but it is 
as flat as the palm of my hand, and can have noth- 
ing in it.” 

“Is there enough bread, and cheese, and milk, 
and salt in the house ? ” We must . consider.” 

“ Aye,” answered Peterkin ; “ there is plenty of 
each and all.” 

“ Then let them come in, if they will,” said Gredel. 
“ But they shall knock at the door first, for we go not 
out on the highways and in the by-ways to help 
others. Let them come to us — good. But let us 
not go to them, for they have their business, and 
we have ours ; and so the world goes round ! ” 

“ They are near the door,” whispered Peterkin, 
“ and very good old women they look.” 

The next moment there was a very soft and civil 
Lapping at the door. 


The Wonderful Trio. 


^74 


“ Who goes there ? ” asked Peterkin. 

“ Three honest old women,” cried a voice. 

“ And what do three honest old women want ? ” 
called Gredel. 

“ A bit of bread each,” replied the voice, “ a mug 
of milk each, and one corner for all three to sleep 
in until in the morning up comes the sweet yellow 
sun.” 

“ Lift up the latch,” said Gredel. “ Come in. 
There is bread, there is milk, and a corner laid with 
three sacks of thistle down. Come in, and welcome.” 

Then up went the latch, and in stepped the three 
travellers. Gredel looked at them without moving ; 
but when she saw they were pleasant in appearance 
— that their eyes were keen in spite of their many 
wrinkles, and that their smiles were very fresh and 
pleasant notwithstanding the lines about their mouth, 
l^zy but good-hearted gredel got up and made a 
neat little bow of welcome. 

“ Are you sisters ? ” she asked. 

“ We are three sisters,!’ answered the leader, she 
who carried the stick. “ I am commonly called Sis- 
ter Trot.” 

“ And I,” said the second, who wore the specta- 
cles, “ am commonly called Sister Pansy.” 



IN STEPPED THE THREE, 








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The Wonderful Trio, 


177 


“And I,” added the third, who carried the bag, 
“ am styled Sister SatcheU” 

“ Your mother and father must have been a good- 
looking couple,” said Gredel, smiling. 

“They were born handsome,” quoth Trot, rearing 
her head proudly, “and they grew handsomer.” 

“ How came they to grow handsomer ? ” asked 
Peterkin, who had been standing in a corner. 

“Because they were brisk and hurried about,” 
replied Pansy, “ and never found the day too long. 
But pray, sir, who are you ? ” 

“ I am Peterkin, son of Gredel.” 

“ And may I ask what you do .? ” inquired Trot. 

“Watch the goats.” 

“ And what do you do when you watch the goats ? ” 

“ Look about.” 

“What do you see when you look about?” asked 
Sister Pansy. 

“ The sky, and the earth, and the goats.” 

“Ah ! ” said Pansy, “ it is very good to look at the 
sky, and truly wise to look at the earth, while it is 
clever to keep an eye on the goats ; but Peterkin — 
Peterkin — you do not look far enough ! ” 

“ And when you look about,” queried Sister 
Satchel, “ what do you pick up ? ” 


178 


The Wonderful Trio. 


“ Nothing,” said Peterkin. 

“ Nothing ! ” echoed the visitor. “ What ! not even 
an idea?” 

“ What is an idea ? ” asked Peterkin. 

Oh, oh, oh ! ” said the three sisters. “ Here is 
Peterkin, who not only never picks up an idea, but 
actually does not know what one is ! ” 

“ This comes of not moving about,” said Trot. 

“ Of not looking about,” said Pansy. 

“And of not picking up something every day,” 
said Satchel. “And a worse example I, for one, 
never came across.” 

“ Nor I ! ” “ Nor I ! ” echoed the other sisters. 

Whereupon they all looked at Peterkin, and seemed 
dreadfully serious. 

“ Why, whatever have I done ? ” he demanded. 

“ That’s just it ! ” said the sisters. “ What have 
you done ? ” 

“Nothing!” exclaimed Peterkin, quite with the 
intention of justifying himself. “ Nothing at all I ” 

“ Ah ! ” said Trot, “ that is the truth, indeed ; what- 
ever else may be wrong — done nothing at all ! ” 

“ Nothing ! ” “ Nothing I ” repeated Satchel and 

Pansy, in a breath. 

“ Dear me ! ” said Peterkin. 

Whereupon Gredel, half-frightened herself, and 


The Wonderful Trio. 


179 


partly indignant that her boy should be lamented 
over in this uncalled-for manner, said, “Would you 
be pleased to take a seat ? ” 

“ Certainly ! ” said Trot. “ Still I, for one, would 
not think of such a thing until your stools were 
dusted.” 

Gredel could not believe her eyes, for actually Trot 
raised one end of her stick and it became a brush, 
with which she dusted three stools. 

“ I think, too,” said Sister Pansy, looking out 
sharp through her spectacles, “that if we were to 
stop up that hole in the corner we should have less 
draught. As a rule, holes are bad things in a house.” 

So off she went, and stopped up the hole with a 
handful of dried grass she took from a corner. 

“ Bless me ! ” said Satchel ; “ here are four pins on 
the floor ! ” 

Whereupon she picked up the pins and popped 
them into her wallet. Meanwhile Gredel looked on, 
much astonished at these proceedings. 

“ I may as well have a rout while I am about it,” 
said Trot, beginning at once to sweep up. 

“Cobwebs in every corner!” cried Pansy; and 
away she went, looking after the walls. 

“No wonder you could not find your wooden 


A Wonderful Trio. 


I So 

spoon,” remarked Satchel; “why, here it is, most 
mysteriously up the chimney ! ” 

There was such a dusting, sweeping, and general 
cleaning as the place had never seen before. 

“ This is great fun ! ” said Peterkin ; “ but how it 
makes you sneeze ! ” 

“ Here, dame Gredel,” cried Satchel ; “ I have 
picked up all the things you must have lost for the 
last three years. Here is your thimble ; and now 
you can take the bit of leather off your finger. Here 
are your scissors, which will cut cloth better than 
that knife ; and here is the lost leg of the third stool 
— so that I can now sit down in safety.” 

“ Why,” exclaimed Peterkin, “ the place looks 
twice as large as it did, and ten times brighter. 
Mother, I am glad the ladies have come.” 

“ I am sure, ladies,” said the good woman, “ I 
shall never forget your visit.” 

To tell the truth, however, there was something 
very ambiguous in Gredel’s words. 

“ There ! ” said Trot ; “ and now I can sit down in 
comfort to my bread and milk.” 

“ And very good bread and milk, too,” said Satchel. 
“ I think, sisters, we are quite fortunate to fall upon 
this goodly cot.” 

“Yes,” remarked Trot, “they are not bad souls, 


A Wonderful Trio. 


8i 


this Gredel and Peterkin ; but, they sadly want mend- 
ing. However, they have good hearts, and you know 
that those who love much are forgiven much; and 
indeed I would sooner eat my supper here than in 
some palaces you and I, sisters, know something 
about.” 

“ Quite true ! ” assented the others, “ quite true ! ” 
And so they went on talking as though they had 
been in their own house and no one but themselves 
in the room. Gredel listened with astonishment, and 
Peterkin with all his ears, too delighted even to be 
astonished. 

“Now this,” thought he, “comes of their knowing 
something of what goes on beyond the Great Hill as 
far away as I can see.” 

‘^ime for bed,” suddenly said Dame Trot, who 
evidently was the leader, “ if we are to see the sun 
rise.” 

The sisters then made themselves quite comfort- 
able, and tucked up their thistle-down beds and 
home-spun sheets with perfect good humor. 

Peterkin awoke cheerily, and he was dressed even 
before the sun appeared. He made the fire, set the 
table, gave the place a cheerful air, and then opened 
the door to look after the goats, wondering why he 


i 82 


A Wondtrful Trio. 


felt so light and happy. He was soon joined by the 
three sisters, who made a great to-do with some cold 
water and their washing. 

‘‘Is it good to put your head souse in a pail?” 
asked Peterkin. 

“ Try it,” replied Dame Trot. 

So by this time, quite trusting the old women, he 
did so, and found his breath gone in a moment. 
However, he enjoyed breathing all the more when he 
found his head once more out of the pail, and after 
Pansy had rubbed him dry with a rough towel, 
which she took out of Satchel’s wallet, he thought he 
had never experienced such a delightful feeling as 
then took possession of him. Even since the previ- 
ous night he felt quite a new being, and alas I he 
found himself forgetting Gredel — his mother Gredel, 
who loved him and taught him only to live for to-day. 

“ And shall I show you down the hill-side ? ” asked 
Peterkin, when the three sisters had taken their por- 
ridge and were sprucing themselves for departure. 

“ Yes,” said dame Trot, “ and glad am I thou hast 
saved us the trouble of asking thee.” 

“ A good lad,” remarked Pansy to Gredel, “ but he 
must look about him.” 

“Truly,” said Satchel. “And, above all, he must 
pick up everything he comes across, when he can do 


The Wonderful Trio. 183 

so without robbing a neighbor, and he may steal ah 
his neighbor knows^ without depriving the gentle- 
man of anything.” 

Then Peterkin, feeling as light as a feather, started 
off down the hillside, the three old sisters chatting, 
whispering, and chuckling in a very wonderful man- 
ner. So, when they were quite in the valley, Peter- 
kin said, “ Please you, I will leave you now, ladies j 
and many thanks for your coming.” Then he very 
civilly touched his tattered cap, and was turning on 
his battered heels, when Sister Trot said, “ Stop ! ” 
and he turned. 

“ Peterkin,” she said, “ thou art worth loving and 
thinking about, and for your kindness to us wander- 
ers we must ask you to keep something in remem- 
brance of our visit. Here, take my wonderful stick 
and believe in it. You know me as Trot, but grown- 
up men call me the Fairy Work-o’-Day.” Peterkin 
.made his obeisance, and took the stick. 

“ I will never lose it ! ” said he. 

“ You never will,” said Trot, “ after once you know 
how to use it.” 

‘‘Well,” said sister Pansy, “ I am not to be beaten 
by my sister, and so here are my spectacles.” 

“ I shall look very funny in them,” said Peterkin, 
eyeing them doubtfully. 


The Wonderful Trio. 


?S4 

“Nay; nobody will see them on your nose as you 
mark them on mine. The world will observe their 
wisdom in your eyes, but the wires will be invisible. 
By-the-by, sister Pansy is only my home-name ; men 
call me Fairy See-far ; and so be good.” 

“ As for me,” said the third sister, “ I am but the 
younger of the family. I could not be in existence 
had not my sisters been born into the world. I am 
going to give you my sack ; but take heed, it were 
better that you had no sack at all than that you should 
fill it too full; than that you should fling into it all 
that you see ; than that you should pass by on the 
other side when, your sack being full, another human 
being, fallen amongst thieves, lies bleeding and want- 
ing help ! And now know that, though I am some- 
times called Satchel, my name amongst the good 
people is the Fairy Save-some.” 

“ Good by,” suddenly said the three sisters. They 
smiled, and instantly they were gone — just like 
Three Thoughts. 

So he turned his face towards home, with sorrow in 
his heart as he thought of the three sisters, while hope 
was mixed with the sadness as he glanced towards 
the far-off mountain which was called Mons Futura. 

Now, Peterkin had nevep cared to climb hillsides, 
and, therefore he rarely went down them if he could 


The Wonderful Trio, 


1S5 


help it, always lazily stopping at the top. But now 
the wonderful stick, as he pressed it upon the ground, 
seemed to give him a light heart, and a lighter pair of 
heels, and he danced up the hillside just as though 
he were holiday-making, soon reaching home. 

“See, mother,” said Peterkin, “the good women 
have given me each a present — the one her stick, the 
second her glasses, and the third her wallet.” 

“ Ho ! ” said Gredel. “ Well, I am not sorry they 
are gone, for I am afraid they would soon have made 
you despise your mother. They are very pleasant old 
people no doubt, but rude and certainly ill-bred, or 
they would not have put my house to rights.” 

“ But it looked all the better for it.” 

“It looked very well as it was.” 

“But the world goes on and on,” said Peterkin. 

Gredel shook her head. “ Humph ! ” she said, “ a 
stick, an old pair of spectacles, and a sack not worth 
a dime ! When people give gifts, let them be gifts 
and not cast-offs.” 

“Anyhow,” said Peterkin, “I can tell you that the 
stjpk is a good stick, and helps you over the hill 
famously. I will keep it, and you may have the sack 
and the spectacles.” 

“ Let us try your spectacles,” cried Gredel. “ Oh /” 
she said, trying them on carelessly. “ These are the 


r86 


A Wonderful Trio. 


most wonderful spectacles in the world,” she went on ; 
“but no more civil than those three old women.” 

“ What do you mean, mother ? ” 

“I see you, Peterkin — and a very sad sight, too. 
Why, you are lazy, careless, unwashed, and stupid ; 
and a more deplorable object was never seen by hon- 
est woman.” 

Poor Peterkin blushed very much j but at this point, 
his mother taking off the glasses, he seized and placed 
them before his own eyes. “ Oh!^' he exclaimed. 

“ What now .? ” asked Gredel in some alarm. 

“ Now I see you as you are — and a very bad 
example are you to set before your own. son ! Why> 
you are careless, and love me not for myself but your- 
self, or you would do your best for me, and send me 
out in the world.” 

f 

“ What ? and dare you talk to your mother in such 
fashion ? Give me the spectacles once more ! ” and 
she clapped them on again. “ Bless me ! ” she con- 
tinued, “ the boy is quite right, and I see I am selfish, 
and that I am making him selfish — a very pretty 
business, indeed 1 This is to be thought over,” she 
said, laying aside the spectacles. 

By this time Peterkin had possessed himself of. the 
stick, and then, to his amazement, he found it had 
taken the shape of a spade. 


A Wonderful Trio. 187 

“Well,” said he, “as here is a spade I think I will 
turn over the potato-patch.” This he did ; and com- 
ing in to breakfast he was admonished to find how 
fine the milk tasted. “ Mother,” said he, “ here is a 
penny I have found in the field.” 

“ Put it in the bag,” said Gredel. 

He did so, and immediately there was a chink. 

Over he turned the sack, and lo! there were ten 
pennies sprinkled on the table. 

“ Ho, ho ! ” said Peterkin, “ if, now, the bag increases 
money after such a pleasant manner, I have but to 
take out one coin and cast it in again, and soon I 
shall have a fortune.” He did so; but he heard 
no chinking. He inverted the bag again, and out 
fell the one coin he had picked up while digging the 
potato-patch. 

“This, now, ‘is very singular,” he said; “let me 
put on the spectacles.” This done, “ Ha ! ” he cried 
“ I see now how it is. The money will never grow in 
the sack, unless one works hard ; and then it increases 
whether one will or not.” 

Meanwhile Gredel, taking up the stick, it took the 
shape of a broom, and upon the hint she swept the 
floor. Next, sitting down before Peterkin’s clothes, 
the stick became a needle, and she stitched away 
with a will. 


A Wonderful Trio. 


1 88 

So time rolled on. The cottage flourished, and 
the garden was beautiful. Then a cow was brought 
home, and it was wonderful how often fresh money 
changed in the wallet. Gredel had grown handsomer, 
and so also had Peterkin. But one day it came to 
pass that Peterkin said : “ Mother, it is time I went 
over the great hill.” 

“ What ! canst thou leave me ? ” 

“ Thou didst leave thy father and mother.” 

Gredel was wiser than she had been, and so she 
quietly said : “ Let us put on the spectacles. “ Ah ! 
I see,” she then said, “ a mother may love her son, 
but she must not stand in his way as he goes on in 
the world, or she becomes his enemy.” 

Then Peterkin put on the spectacles. “ Ah ! I 
see,” said he, a son may love his mother, but his love 
must not interfere with his duty to other men. The 
glasses say that every man should try and leave the 
world something the better for his coming ; that many 
fail and but few succeed, yet that all must strive.” 

“ So be it,” said Gredel. “ Go forth into the world, 
my son, and leave me hopeful here alone.” 

“ The glasses say that the sense of duty done is the 
greatest happiness in the world,” said Peterkin. 

Then Gredel looked again through the glasses. 

“ I see,” saicj she ; “ the glasses say it is better to 


A Wonderful 'Irio. 


1S9 


have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. 
Go forth into the world, my son ; we shall both be 
the happier for having done our duty.” 

So out into the world went Peterkin. 

What else is there to tell } Why, who can write of 
to-morrow ? 

By the way, you should know that amongst the 
very wise folk sister Trot is known as “ Industry,” 
sister Pansy as “ Foresight,” while honest Satchel is 
generally called “ Economy.” 


Prying Lizzie. 


PRYING LIZZIE. 

A h, what a sigh was that, coming from such a 
little mite of a girl ! One would think she 
must be a grandmother in miniature, and had seen 
and suffered a heap of affliction in her earlier days. 
She tosses a pile of books aside — have they any- 
thing to do with her trouble ? — and, throwing her 
arms forward on the table in a very sprawling fash- 
ion, she raises her blue eyes half crossly, half tim- 
idly, towards a pair of spectacles which seem to be 
glaring sternly at her from the other side of the 
table, and says ; 

“ Auntie!” 

“Yes, my dear,” say the spectacles, sharply. 

Lizzie turns round towards the open window, 
through which the leaves and the trees and a beauti- 
ful blue patch of sky are visible, and the brisk little 
breeze is wafting the sweet odor of flowers, and her 
round little browned face pouts and wriggles itself 
very queerly as she mumbles ; 

190 


Prying LizzU. 191 

Mayn’t I finish this history lesson after tea ? 
It’s so very hard ! ” 

The spectacles glitter and glance for a moment, 
up, down and about, and then they say, as they bend 
down again bn the stitching : 

“ Little girls must not pro-cras-tin-ate ! We shall 
finish the history now, my dear, if you please. Go 
up*stairs to my bed-room, where you’ll be quieter, and 
I’ll come up in half an hour to hear you recite.” 

The bed-room ! where it is so silent, and the win- 
dow looks out on nothing in particular except a stack 
of firewood. But Lizzie obeys on the instant ; for 
she knows her stately but kind aunt too well to offer 
any show of hesitation. 

On her way across the top landing she passes the 
forbidden room — the room in which her aunt keeps 
her “ wallyables,” as the Irish servant calls them, 
and where is enshrined the wonderful rosewood box 
whose contents are such a mystery to Lizzie. For I 
regret to say that Lizzie, good little girl as she is 
otherwise, is one of the most curious and inquisitive 
of mortals. 

She pauses for a moment on the threshold of the 
half-open door, with her finger in her mouth and her 
eyes staring keenly into the room. Ha ! the blinds 
have not been drawn. The warm sunlight is pouring 


193 


prying Lizzie. 


into the room, and it will damage the rich carpet 
Should she call her aunt, or should she go in herself and 
darken the room ! It can be done in a second. She 
will go in, and touch nothing. She skips across the 
floor, trembling just a little, and softly lets fall the 
curtains of the window facing the sun. On turning 
round to go back, her eyes fall on the wonderful box, 
with its embossed silver plating, resting on the table 
at the farthest corner. She would so much like to 
feel the exquisite tracery with her hands — to read 
the delicately lined inscription on the side — just for 
a moment I She will not stay, not she ! nor attempt 
to open it, though — “ well, I do wonder what can be 
inside of it! Not letters, surely. It is too heavy for 
that ! ” She is over and actually seated before it, 
before she knows what she has done. 

“ How handsome the lid is ! And this — ” 

Her heart jumped into her mouth. She had jerked 
out a tiny drawer and instantly pushed it in again. 
She sank back in the cosey chair, with her heart going 
pit-a-pat in her throat for a little while. Soon, how- 
ever, she felt better \ and, clasping her little hands 
closely together in her dress to keep them from ram- 
bling any farther, she began to examine the writing 
and figures on the silver, with her nose almost rub- 
bing against the box. 


Prying Lizzie. 


193 


“That flower ! ” she whispered to herself in rapture. 
“O, that beautiful bird of Paradise ! Those pretty, 
darling, laughing Cupids ! O dear, dear, dear ! I 
' wonder if I shall ever have a box like this all to 
myself! What splendid things there must be inside 
of it — gold and diamonds and rubies, perhaps!” 

And she lounges back in the great chair once 
more, wondering and thinking and guessing and 
dreaming, while the history book drops neglected on 
the floor. 

She sat there, it might have been an hour, it 
might have been only a few minutes, when — she 
couldn’t tell exactly how it happened, hardly what 
happened. She thought she must have touched one 
of the Cupids — when, all at once, the heavy lid flew 
open with a loud bang, and such a terrible looking 
little man bounced out on the table and pointed fiercely 
at her with his finger. His nose was almost as long 
as himself, and that was about four inches. He was 
dressed in a suit of yellow silk, and his eyes pierced 
through and through her like needles. 

“What! what! what are you doing there?” he 
exclaimed. “ How came you there ? What have 
you got in your hand ? ” 

Terribly frightened, Lizzie could only answer in a 
whisper, “Nothing!” 


194 


Prying Lizzie. 



THE INHABITANT OF THE ROSEWOOD BOX. 


“ Nothing! What’s that? ” said the fierce little man, 
with a savage stamp of his foot. “ Who are you ? 
Where do you come from ? How old are you ? What 


Prying Lizzie. 195 

you looking at ? What are you thinking about ? ” 

Lizzie rose to leave the room ; but, all at once, her 
feet became heavy, and could hardly be made to step 
at all. The air, too, seemed to grow thick, which made 
breathing extremely difficult. She had not reached 
the door when the little man — after screaming, 
“Where are you going.?” — tapped with his 
knuckles on the end of the box, and, O dreadful! 
out there rushed scores and scores of vicious-looking 
creatures like himself. They jumped on the floor, 
crowded round her feet, tugged at her skirts, and, 
finally, three or four of them got up among her hair 
and began to tousle it unmercifully. And all the 
while they kept up a hideous screeching of innumer- 
able questions, not one of which did they give her 
time to answer. 

Lizzie tried to cry out, but, as soon as she opened 
her mouth, they pinched her in the arm and neck. 
She then opened the door and walked into her aunt’s 
bed-room \ but they followed her in hundreds, scream- 
ing and yelling and pinching her. 

“ Why ! whatever have I done .? ” she moaned. 

“ That’s just it ! ” said one of the creatures. 
“ What have you done .? ” “ What have you done ? ” 

“ What are you doing ? ” What will you do ? ” 
The questions went round from one to another. 


196 


Prying Lizzie. 


“ O, where has everybody gone ! ” she cried, look- 
ing into the different rooms and finding no one. She 
put her hand in her pocket for her handkerchief, for 
she was beginning to cry ; but she quickly drew it 
back again with a cry of pain. They were in her 
pocket, rummaging among her letters, and munching 
some candy she had tied up in her handkerchief. 

“ Where did 3 ^ou get this ? ” they shouted. “ Who 
sent you this letter ? Who sewed on this pocket ? ” 
And the questions were echoed by a countless multi- 
tude of tiny creatures, who crowded about, hopping 
over her feet and arms and neck. 

Quite bewildered and desperate she threw herself 
down on the nearest chair. Just then one little fel- 
low, stouter and more ferocious-looking than the oth- 
ers, jumped on her shoulders screaming into her ear ; 

“ Ain’t you Paul Pry’s sister ? ” 

Paul Pry’s sister ! ” “ Paul Pry’s sister I ” “ Paul 
Pry’s sister 1 ” was echoed from one to another. 

“ Yes, take her 1 ” “ Punish, pinch, torment 1 ” 

“ O, O, O, O, 0 1 ” screamed Lizzie, as she felt 
their terrible long nails in her flesh all over her body. 

Suddenly, “Hush!” “Hush!” “Here she 
comes 1 ” she heard some of the voices say. 

“Who?” “Who comes?” “Who?” “Who?” 
“ Who ? ” cried hundreds of voices. 


Prying Lizzie. 


97 


“ Why, who but Paul Pry’s sister’s aunt ! ” 

“The aunt of the little wretch of a girl who wants 
to see everything ! ” 

“ Who wants to know everything ! ” 

“ To hear everything ! ” 

“ Good ! good I W^U pay her before her aunt 
comes ! We'll cure her ! We'll make her want to 
know about what doesn’t concern her. We'llfix her ! " 
“ Silence ! " cried the stoutest little creature, with a 
pompous face, and in a voice loud enough to come 
from a steam-whistle. “ Silence, all of you ! I wish 
to speak. Child, you have come to the abode of 
Inquisitive Thoughts. We increase at a fearful rate. 
Every girl adds to our numbers. Millions-billions 
are added every year. You never thought of this ? ” 
“ No — I — never — did ! ” sobbed Lizzie. 

“ Don’t be a baby. All this would never happen 
and we would have plenty of room, if it were not for 
curious little girls like you, who won’t mind your own 
business. Think of the girls all over the earth 
and of all the curious thoughts that will be born before 
a hundred years from now. We shall be suffocated. 
There are too many of us now. Don’t think we 
mean to let you off. Your punishment is coming.” 

“ Hasn’t it come yet ? ” she asked, weeping. 

“ Faugh, that was only fun ! Your punishment 


198 


Prying Lizzie. 


will be to swallow as many of us as belongs to you — 
and that’s a lot ! ” 

He turned towards the multitude and waved his arm. 

“ Paul Pry’s sister’s children will please come up 
here and settle on her lap.” 

Here they come — one, two, three, four, five — 
how many more ? Will they never come to an end ? 
Forty, sixty, a hundred — and still they come ! At 
last, as her arms and her lap are full of them, she 
sees the last creature in the procession just coming 
out of the box, and — lo and behold ! — he is bearing 
on his shoulders her history book. Presently, as the 
pile is up to her neck, the last man jumps up, dashes 
down the book on her head, and saying : 

“ Paul Pry’s sister 
Had a pretty nose, 

Just the sort of thing to tweak — 

So, here goes 1 ” 

He gives her poor nose a tremendous wrench, as 
she thought. She screams aloud in her terror, and — 

“ Why, bless me, my child ! what is the matter with 
you ? I declare ! your face is all wet. Did I hurt 
you, darling } ” said her aunt, caressingly ; for it was 
she who had gently pulled her nose in order to 
waken her. And O ! such a shout of joy as Lizzie 
gave upon finding herself unhurt, with a nose on her 


Prvine TAzzie. 


199 


face, and no one about but her dear aunt, who would 
be sure to forgive her when she should tell her all 
she had suffered, and how good she meant to be. 

And, indeed, her aunt had reason to congratulate 
herself afterward, that, ever since that strange mid- 
summer day’s dream had come upon her, Lizzie had 
ceased to be the vulgar, inquisitive, prying little 
thing that she had once been. 


Only Fifteen. 


ONLY FIFTEEN. 


HAT was a rather cruel, unfeeling remark of 



X Mr. Earle to his daughter Sadie, or Sarah as 
she now wished to be called, because, “ at least, she 
wasn’t a baby ! ” 

“ No, sis, you’re neither a little girl nor a woman \ 
but just between hay and grass, as one may say.” 

Sarah gave an extra push to her already well tied- 
back muslin overskirt, and started for school with a 
smouldering spark in her eye. 

“ It’s true what father says,” she soliloquized as 
she walked along. “ I’m too old to wear my dresses 
short, and too young to wear them long ; too old to 
let my hair go loose and comfortable, and too young 
for frizzles, puffs and coils. And as the cows in the 
spring, when the hay is gone and the grass not well- 
grown, have to put up with odds and ends, so I have 
to take all Hat’s and Jen’s cast-off dresses and hats j 
or, if there is anything awfully unbecoming to them 


200 


Only Fifteen. 


20 1 


I get tkat^ whether I like it or not. Then in the 
work, what I have is just what everybody else hates to 
do, like washing dishes and cleaning lamps — just 
what nobody gets credit for either, only blame for 
not doing well.” 

By this time this ambitious girl of ours had 
reached the school-house ; but the teacher had an 
engagement, so the card attached to the door-handle 
told the scholars. Sarah started at once to retrace 
her steps ; for it was a two-mile walk, with only here 
and there a few old apple-trees to shield her from the 
sun^s glare. 

As she walked, her thoughts reverted to the morn- 
ing’s conversation, partly, perhaps, because the scent 
of new-mown hay greeted her. Like any girl of her 
age it struck her as a queer, backward sort of com- 
parison to speak of childhood as the time of hay. 

“ O, yes 1 ” she exclaimed aloud as a thought 
struck her, “ I see how it is ! ” and she at once 
resolved to write the coming week’s composition on 
that very subject. 

“I’ll say,” she soliloquized, “that childhood is 
cared for by the garnered love of father and mother. 
That’s the hay, you see ! But, at last, the youth goes 
out into the world and gathers love for himself. And 
I shall give it a moral turn ; for, somehow, I think 


202 


Only Fifteen. 


young people ought not to be selfish, even if I am 
so — but ought to gather love by loving. 

“What’s the use of talking, though? If /really 
wanted to be useful I couldn’t. Who’d ask me to 
sit up and watch with sick people, for instance ? I 
couldn’t even keep awake all night. I wish I could 
be sure I’d be the right sort of woman, and then, 
seems to me, it might be beautiful to be wrinkled or 
gray ; for, by that time, one is sure of one’s self.” 

Then she suddenly stepped down from her mount 
of moral enthusiasm — a feat, alas ! so easily accom- 
plished, so hard to account for, often. 

Before I get to be good and gray, I’d like some 
nice times and some nice things. This muslin over- 
skirt and waist are pretty enough and for once, new, 
but — why — what ! — ” 

She sprang quickly out of the road in sudden ter- 
ror, for she thought a loose horse was plunging furi- 
ously down the road behind her. She had not 
scrambled half-way up the steep bank before he 
came in sight, but, to her relief, he was not riderless. 
Squire Wait’s boy reined him in with difficulty, just 
within view, and, turning in his saddle, shouted at 
the top of his voice, evidently to some one in a 
neighboring field : 

“ If Doctor Ainslie ain’t to home, what’ll I do ? ” 


Only Fifteen. 


Sarah could not hear the reply ; but the boy 
appeared satisfied, for he quickly settled himself in 
the saddle, applied his whip to the horse, and was 
out of sight in an instant. 

Sarah hurried up the bank and looked over the 
stone on its top. At no great distance she saw a 
man lying on the ground, and three others standing 
by him. In a moment she saw who it was, and, as 
she ran towards the group, she guessed the truth, 
which was, that Squire Wait himself had received, at 
the hands of one of his blundering workmen, a 
severe cut in the leg from a scythe while mowing. 

The bright arterial blood was pouring from the 
wound, a deathlike pallor had overspread the suf- 
ferer’s face, and his eyes were already half-closed. 

Sarah whisked the muslin overskirt over her head 
like a flash. 

“ Help me tear a broad bandage out of this ! ” she 
cried. 

The men were dull-looking plodding laborers ; 
but one of them seemed encouraged by her air of 
determination and, in a moment, from the back of 
the skirt a breadth was torn. Without any words 
Sarah tied a strong knot in this breadth. Then she 
stooped down, and, with one great heart-sinking, one 
cry of the flesh against the spirit, she lifted the rent 


204 


Only Fifteen, 


garment fi om the gaping wound to see just where it 
was ; then she pressed the knot just above the wound 
with all her strength. 

“John,’’ said she, steadily, “tie this bandage 
under the leg, and one of you others go as quick as 
you can for a stout short stick.” 

The blood, already affected in its flow by her pres- 
sure, oozed more slowly from the wound. The stick 
was brought in a trice, and slipped under the band- 
age where John had tied it in a “ hard knot.” 

“Now, John,” said Sarah, calmly, “twist the stick 
till you tighten the bandage so the blood shall stop 
altogether.” 

By the time this was done poor Mrs. Wait, trem- 
bling and terrified, arrived on the scene with a little 
old-fashioned pocket bottle of smelling salts, and a 
cruet of vinegar wherewith to bathe her husband’s 
head. These restoratives answered well enough till 
the doctor arrived. 

“ You’re a right sensible girl ! ” said the doctor, 
when he heard what Sarah had done. “ Anyone of 
you fellows,” continued he, “ could have stopped the 
blood, or mostly stopped it, by pressing the limb 
above the wound with your fingers till help could be 
got.” 

Next morning Sarah stopped at the squire’s gate 


SARAH COMES TO THE RESCUE. 


to learn how he was. John was spreading hay in a 
field close by, and he came out to the road to speak 
to her. 

“ I say,” he said, contemplating her slight form 


2o6 


Onfy Fifteen, 


with genuine admiration, “ such a little creeter as you 
be to ha’ ben so knowin’ and so smart ! Why, you 
can’t be more’n fourteen or fifteen at the outside.’’ 

“ Only fifteen,” answered Sarah, with a queer little 
smile. “Just between hay and grass.” 

“ I never did see the beat ! ” responded John. 
“ How’d you know so well what to dew ? that’s what 
I’d like to know ! ” 

“Oil learned it at school,” answered Sarah, with 
a little air of patronage and humility combined. 
“ You see, John, the blood that comes straight from the 
heart is bright red, and comes in jets as the heart 
beats j didn’t you notice that ? ” 

“ Yes ! yes ! I see his life was beatin’ away, but 
nothin’ we could dew wouldn’t suit him ; and, fact ! 
there didn’t seem to be nothin’ we could dew.” 

“ Well,” continued she, finding his wandering 
thoughts had come home again, “ when the blood 
comes that way and is bright red like that, you must 
do something at once. You must put your force on 
a knot as I did, between the wound and the heart. 
And, while a knotted bandage is getting ready, you 
ought to hold the limb up high as you can. That 
will check the blood. I forgot that at the time.” 

“ I never did see the beat ! ” repeated John, his 
limited vocabulary allowing no more elegant phrase- 


Only Fifteen, 


207 


ology in which to erpress his wonder and esteem, 

Sarah was moving on when John called after her. 

“ Say, sis, it’s a shame ! but those numb-heads 
went to work and tore that pooty muslin thing of 
yours all to bits, thinkin’ ’cause you asked for one 
bandage you’d want twenty more. Mis’s Wait was 
dretful sorry. Said ef there’d been enough left for 
an apron ’twouldn’t ’a ’ben so bad.” 

Sarah laughed and went on, smoothing down a 
dusty alpaca overskirt — an old one of Jenny’s cut 
down. 

A few days after, the Earle family were all in the 
kitchen at supper, when there came a knock at the 
front door. Hattie rose and went to the door. She 
returned directly with a package in her hand, reading 
on the outside wrapper in a rather disgusted tone as 
she walked in : 

To the little girl who learns her lessons at school 
so well.” 

“ Susie, of course,” said Sarah with a lofty air ; for 
Hattie had looked at her^ while Susie was aged six. 

“ I don’t know why it mayn’t mean you, too,” 
retorted Hattie. “ It looks like Squire Wait’s hand, 
though a little shaky.” 

Sarah had half a mind not to take the proffered 
bundle. As she took off the newspaper wrapper she 


2o8 


Onfy Fiftem, 


saw a note, slipped under the string of a brown 
paper parcel from some city store, as was evident by 
the advertisement. The note was directed to “ Miss 
Sarah Earle,’’ and read as follows : 

“ Dear Sarah : I was dredful sorry you lost your 
overskert and the squire was, too, and said you 
shouldn’t lose nothing by it. So I went up to the 
city, and went round and round till I was tired to 
deth, and my head was all of a daze. Finerlly, I 
went into the nicest looking store and the one recer- 
mended the highest, and was showed to the proper 
clerk for such things, and I says to him, in a despair- 
ing way, I expect : ‘ Show me the genteelest, hand- 

somest, and most sootable dress for a young lady of 
fifteen years.’ He asked was you dark or bland ? 

“ Says I, * Middling, with a rosy cheek and a bright 
eye, and such a look as you might gess a girl to have 
that tore her brand new overskirt all to bits to stop 
my husband from bleeding to deth.’ I can tell you, 
fokes near by was intrested to here all about it \ and 
one gentleman giv me the book you find inclosed, 
with his respects. The end of it all was, that the 
head one of the store came up and sold me the dress 
very reasonable, and leave to change if you don’t 
like it, and likeways put in the piece of muslin for a 


Only Fifteen. 


209 

school overskert, as near like yours as I could see, 
free. 

“ With my earnest hopes that you will be as good 
a woman as girl I remain, your obedient servant, 

“ M. E. Wait.” 

Sarah had read the note aloud at the eager request 
of the family ; but it had been hard work for her, 
and she now burst into tears and was running off 
without even looking at her treasures, when her 
father called out, cheerily : 

“ Come, Sadie, let’s see what the squire’s wife 
bought for you ! I allays thought she was a close 
woman, and I guess it’s a pink calico.” 

“ How can you, father ! ” asked Sarah, indignantly. 
But she did dry her eyes, nevertheless. 

There was a chorus of “ O’s ! ” and “ Splendids ! ! ” 
when a piece of silvery summer silk was unrolled. 

“ Enough,” said Hattie, “ for a whole suit ; and 
you deserve it, Sadie, and I’m real glad of it.” 

That’s organdy muslin and very nice,” remarked 
Jenny, as the muslin came into view. 

The book proved to be a pocket edition of Whit- 
tier. She said softly, as she took it in her hand : 

“ That’s the best of all, because I can keep it 
always.” 


210 


Only Fijteen. 


On the fly-leaf was written : 

“ Miss Sarah Earle. 

“ A token of admiration for her noble conduct, 

John Brewster.” 

It was from one she never knew, nor was likely to 
see ; yet it was all the more delightful to think that, 
to one person in the world, she would always seem 
“ noble.” Her soul thrilled at the thought. 

As she rose to carry away her precious bundles 
her father spoke far more gently than was his wont : 

“ The best of all^ 1 think, is, that you did it with- 
out thought of reward.” 


LILY ON THE PLAINS. 

L ILY’S father is an officer in the United States 
Army who, for many years, has lived in the 
Far West — that wonderful country where the sun 
blazes down upon miles of barren prairie, undulating 
to the horizon as if it were a great heaving sea, the lit- 
tle hillocks rising like dark waves upon its surface. 

Over these vast plains rove the Indians, hunting 
antelopes, wolves, etc. At these times the “ red man ” 
looks his best ; mounted on his swift pony, his gaudy 
blanket and bright feathers gleaming in the sunshine, 
his long black hair streaming in the wind, he seems 
truly the “ noble savage.” 

But other errands sometimes call out the Indian 
braves. They go forth on the war-path, their bodies 
painted jet-black, their faces streaked in frightful 
fashion, green, red and yellow ; horrible objects they 
are if you chance to meet them returning from a suc- 
cessful fight, the bravest warrior riding at the head ot 

2H 


213 


Lily On The Plains. 



LILY. {^Fro'm photograph.') 


the party, carrying a long pole to which are fastened 
the still bleeding scalps which have been taken from 
their enemies. 

It is to control these savages that soldiers are 


Lily On The Plains. 


213 


needed on the plains, to prevent war-parties from 
dashing into little frontier villages, stealing horses 
and cattle, burning barns and houses, and murdering 
the people who are trying to cultivate the prairies, 
to turn the great plains of dry burnt grass into fields 
of wheat and beautiful green meadows. 

All Indians are not wicked ; but the tribe near 
which Lily’s father was stationed was extremely wild 
and cruel, and refused to live on friendly terms with 
white people. 

When Lily was a baby she was so feeble and sickly 
that she was left with her grandmamma to be taken 
care of ; but by the time she was a fat jolly girl about 
five years old, her papa thought it was very hard to 
be so long separated from his little daughter, so her 
mamma (who had been at home on a visit) deter- 
mined to take her out to the plains. 

Lily’s nurse, who had always taken care of her, 
said she could not let her darling go without her 
amongst those “horrid savages;” so one bright 
morning Lily, and her mamma, and her nurse Jane, 
and Lily’s two darling dollies, “ Rosie ” and “ George,” 
bade good-by to grandmamma and grandpapa with 
tears and kisses, and set off on their long journey of 
two thousand miles. 

For several days and nights they travelled in rail- 


214 


Lily On The Plains, 


road cars ; and every night Lily undressed Rosie and 
George (she had brought their night-clothes in her 
mamma’s shawl-strap) and put them to bed in the 
upper berth, and she and Jane went to sleep in the 
lower one, and mamma slept just across the aisle in 
another section. An old gentleman from California 
was very much interested in Rosie and George, and 
in the morning he began to talk to Lily about her 
children. Such naughty children they were too ! 
bumping and bobbing about on the velvet seats, quite 
refusing to sit still, until, at last, they fell right out 
into the aisle and nearly tripped up the conductor 
when he came round to look at the tickets. 

Lily fairly cried, her children were so troublesome. 
But then the old gentleman called her to his seat and 
gave her a beautiful bunch of white grapes, and told her 
about the wonderful land where lie lived ; about the 
great trees, so large that a dozen people with joined 
hands would scarcely reach around their trunks; 
about the earthquakes, when the ground trembled 
and houses fell down, and people ran out into the 
streets to escape being crushed ; and about pears and 
peaches as large as Lily’s own head, and strawberries 
so big that four of them made a saucer-full. 

But just as Lily was going to ask her friend to tell 
her some more wonders, she saw her mamma and 


Lily On The Plains, 


215 


Jane fastening up 'the bags and shawl-straps, and in 
a few moments the train stopped and a tall gentle- 
man with a military cap came in and kissed mamma, 
and said : 

“ Has my Lily come at last ? ” and picked Lily up 
in his arms and carried her down some steep steps 
and right on board of a little steamboat. 

When Lily waked up next morning the boat was 
puffing along a very dirty, muddy river, and on each 
side were very high banks all covered with brown 
grass, but no trees nor flowers were to be seen. 
Lily said it was like sailing in a big ditch. 

After a good many days they came to what Lily’s 
papa called “home.” It was a number of strong log 
houses built round a square of grass with a flagstaff 
in the middle. There were some soldiers standing 
about and some cannon near the flagstaff. But al- 
though the officers and their wives were very glad to 
see Lily and her mamma, and gave them a kind wel- 
come, they felt very disconsolate ; and when they got 
into their own little hut of four tiny rooms, with only 
thick brown paper tacked up over the rough logs, 
Lily thought of her room at grandmamma’s, with its 
little bed and pretty chairs and window-curtains, and 
she cried with homesickness ; and, if the truth was 
known, mamma and Jane shed a few tears also. 


2:6 


Lily On The Plains. 


/ 


But there was no time for tears next day, be- 
tween unpacking trunks and settling the little brown- 
paper home, and getting used to the strange sights 
and sounds of the Indian camp close by the garrison, 
where twenty-five hundred Indians lived, not more 
than a hundred yards away. 

All day and all night the “ tom-tom,” or big drum. 



THE FORT. 


was being beaten by the Indians ; for the time I am 
telling you of was just after that dreadful battle, when 
the great Indian Chief, Sitting Bull, killed brave Gen- 
eral Custer and half of his noble regiment of cavalry. 
This success had made all the other Indians very 
fierce and restless, and in the small garrisons the sol- 
diers were kept day and night ready for attack. 


Lily On The Plains. 


217 


But Lily did not trouble herself about danger. She 
was not allowed to go out of the garrison enclosure, 
but she played with her chickens and with her little 
pony which her father had bought and trained for 
her. Its name was “ Tecumseh Sherman,” after the 
General of the Army, but Lily called it “ Tic ” for 
short. It soon followed her in and out of the house 
and wherever she went, and showed a most decided 
liking for anything of a red color. When Lily wore 
a red dress “ Tic ” would take a fold in his mouth 
and pull her about, and even knock her down in his 
play, for he never meant to hurt her. In the evening 
Lily’s little side-saddle was put on “ Tic,” and she 
would gallop away over the prairie with her papa. 

One morning Lily rushed into the house calling 
out : 

“Mamma, mamma, here’s a circus! Come and 
see I It’s right outside the door ! ” 

Mamma jumped up so quickly she nearly upset her 
sewing-machine, she was in such a hurry to get to the 
door ; and there, sure enough, just outside the garri- 
son was a great crowd of gaily-dressed people, and 
near the front were six girls mounted on ponies, their 
saddles beautifully embroidered with beads, and fine 
large umbrellas over their heads made of red, white 
and blue cloth. These were princesses, daughters of 


2i8 


Lily On The Plains. 

the great chief of the tribe. Lily ever after talked of 
them as the “six Pocahontases.” 

“ This is ^ Annuity Day/ Lily/’ said her father. 
“ Get your hat and we will go and see the Indians 
get their clothes and provisions for the next year.” 

“ What is ‘ Annuity ? ’ ” asked Lily. “ Is it Indian 
for birth-day?” 

“ Well, yes, it is a sort of birth-day; for the United 
States’ Government gives a good many presents that 
day to the Indians — food and clothes for the men, 
women and children, for a whole year.” 

“ Well, let’s go,” said Lily ; “ and I’ll just touch one 
of those papooses with my own hand, if I get near 
enough. I think they are just dolls. No real, live 
baby would stay quiet tied on a board and fastened 
up all in a bunch to its mother’s back. They do 
wink their eyes, that’s certain ; but I can make my 
Rosy wink her eyes, too, only I have to pull a wire 
to get her to shut ’em.” 

So off started Lily with her papa, and soon they 
came to an open space, in the centre of which was a 
great pile of blankets, clothing, bacon, flour, corn, 
coffee, sugar, tobacco, and many other things which 
good Uncle Sam gives once a year to his “wards,” 
the Indians. Around this pile of things sat a large 
circle of Indians, men, women and children. The 


Lily On llie Plains. 219 



INDIAN PAPOOSE. 


men were, as a general rule, well-dressed in tight leg- 
gings, with strips of gay bead-embroidery down the 
sides ; deer-skin or calico shirts fringed with tiny bells 
and tassels of colored worsted, and bright feathers in 



220 Lily On The Plains. 

their scalp-locks. The women wore flannel panta- 
loons and a single calico slip, and a blanket drawn 
over their heads. 

Many of these wild people had never seen a little 
white girl before. They gazed at Lily’s fair skin and 
long bright hair with great interest. One old man 
wrapped in a buffalo robe advanced, waving his cov- 
ering like some immense bird flapping its wings. 
When he got near Lily he stood still, saying : 

“ Washta papoose ! washta papoose / ” ( Pretty child ! 
pretty child ! ) and held out his hand, saying : 

‘ Howe-howe ^ ” ( How do you do ? ) 

Lily quite trembled when she saw that the inside 
of the buffalo was painted red and yellow to repre- 
sent flames, and the old man himself looked so fierce 
but she shook hands with him and he went off grunt- 
ing his satisfaction. 

And now Lily found a good opportunity to decide 
whether the funny little objects on the Indian wo 
men’s backs were dolls or “ really babies.” 

While the Indian Agent and his clerks were busily 
distributing the “ Annuities,” giving to the Chief of 
each band the allowance for himself and his family, 
Lily went up very close to a squaw who had a black- 
eyed bundle tied upon her back, and stood for sev- 
eral minutes absorbed in contemplation. 


Lily On The Plains. 


221 


*‘Is that a real, live baby, ma’arn, or a doll you 
keep for your little girl ? ” asked Lily, very politely. 

The squaw, of course, did not understand a word 
she said, and only responded : “ Ugh! Howe I Washta 
papoose I” as a general expression of her good will. 
So Lily, presently, put out her hand very softly and 
touched the bundle. 

What a scream ! Even the dignified chiefs turned 
their plumed heads to find out what the cause of the 
noise could be. 

There was the papoose shrieking on its mother’s 
back, proving most positively its claim to be con- 
sidered a “ real, live baby,” and there was a drop of 
bright-red blood on its little brown arm. Lily had 
stuck a pin into the Indian baby just to find out if it 
was alive or not. 

Poor little girl ! She stood frightened and trem- 
bling, crimson blushes on her cheeks, and two great 
tears just brimming over from her eyes. Not until 
she had made a peace-offering of candy to the baby, 
and left it contentedly sucking away at a peppermint- 
stick, could she be consoled and interested once 
more in the strange scene around her. 

At last the crowd all rushed to the “corral,” where 
the cattle were penned up. The Indian men mounted 
the fence and began shooting the steers, which were 


222 


Lily On The Plains. 


to be given to them as beef, amid wild yells and un- 
earthly cries. When the animals were killed the 
squaws hurried into the “corral,” skinned them, cut 
out the tongues, and carried the beef away to the 
camp. All that night the “ tom-tom ” beat louder than 
ever, great fires were built in the camp, and feasts 
and dances kept the Indians astir until daylight 
dawned again. 

One night, when Lily was tucked away fast asleep 
in her little trundle-bed, and her mamma and papa 
were reading in their sitting-room, Jane came to say 
that a soldier wished to speak to Captain Morton. 
In a few minutes the captain returned looking very 
grave. 

“ My dear,” he said to his wife, “ we are going to 
have some trouble to-night, I am afraid. You know 
two Indians are in prison here for committing a mur- 
der. This soldier tells me their friends in the camp 
have determined to rescue them before morning ; for, 
at daylight, the prisoners are to be sent to Fort L — , 
where they will be punished. We must not show we 
are afraid ; but each officer will barricade his house, 
and defend himself and his family as well as he can, 
and the men must do what they can for themselves. 
Thirty white men cannot fight against twenty-five 
hundred Indians.” 


Lily On The Plains. 


223 


“ O, my Lily ! ” murmured Mrs. Morton. “ This is 
bad enough for us ; but why did we bring our inno- 
cent darling to such a dreadful place, to be torn to 
pieces by savages ! ” 

But she was a brave little woman after all, and in 
a minute or two she called Jane, who was trembling 
and crying in the kitchen, and they all began drag- 
ging mattrasses off the beds and piling them against 
the windows, and pushing trunks against the doors ; 
for Indians dread to go into a white man’s house, and 
a slight obstacle will keep them out. Then Mrs. 
Morton took Lily up and laid her on the big bed, and 
put her own fur cloak ready to wrap around the little 
girl if there should be a chance to get away; and 
then she sat down on one side of the bed, with a pis- 
tol on a chair near her, and a rifle in her hand, and a 
belt of cartridges in her lap, and Captain Morton sat 
on the other side, nearer the window, with his pistols 
and rifle, and Jane lay at the foot of the bed with 
her arm around her darling Lily. 

And so they- waited. 

It seerhed as though it never would be light 
enough to see to row the prisoners over the wide 
river, so full of snags and sand-bars that it could not 
be crossed in the night. Once on the opposite shore, 


234 


Lily On The Plains. 


they and their little guard of brave “ boys in blue ” 
could travel swiftly and safely down the railroad to 
F ort L — . The whole country on one side of the river 
belonged to the Indians ; but the other bank was set- 
tled thinly by white people, and on that side travel- 
ling was comparatively safe, for Indians were not 
permitted to have canoes or boats with which to cross 
the stream. 

I must explain to you also what the little garrison, 
threatened in the darkness, would not know, that the 
Indians who were so determined to rescue their friends 
were only the young men of the tribe. The older 
• warriors and the chiefs knew that if they attempted 
to take away the prisoners from the soldiers, their 
“ Great Father in Washington,” as they called the 
President of the United States, would hear of it and 
would punish them, and when ration-day came round 
next time there would be no coffee and bacon and 
blankets for any of the tribe, and for many months 
they would be cold and hungry \ for wild game, which 
Indians used to hunt, is rapidly disappearing from 
the prairies. But the young warriors were obstinate, 
and would not listen to the warning of the old men. 

Suddenly, through the dead silence rose, sharp and 
clear, a savage yell from the dusky crowd. Hoofs 
pattered quickly over the ground ; wheels rattled \ the 


Lily On The Plains. 


long roll of the drum sounded ; the bang-bang of ri- 
fles fired from the windows of the quarters where 
soldiers were ambushed was clearing the parade. 
The savages rushed after the wagon which was carry- 
ing the captives the few hundred yards to the boat- 
landing, and were suddenly met by the sight of the 
Gatling gun, a dreadful sight ; for they had watched 
it at a distance a few days before, and had seen a 
couple of soldiers pour a shower of shot and shell, 
rap rdp-rap-rap^ into the hillside, only by turning a 
little handle. The appearance of this, to them invin- 
cible weapon, daunted even the young warriors; 
they fled back to their camp, where they were re- 
ceived with bitter reproaches. 

As for Lily, she opened her eyes and was fright- 
ened at the noise. But soon the little brown-paper 
house was being put to rights again, and breakfast 
was ready ; and after breakfast Lily was quite busy 
dressing up her dear Rosie and George with some 
bits of shell necklaces and metal armlets, and scraps 
of red and blue cloth which she found out-of-doors, 
sole relics of that dreadful night of suspense and 
terror. 

Later in the day a group of old Chiefs came to 
Captain Morton’s door. They sat in a semi-circle on 
the ground. Captain Morton stood in his door-way, and 


236 


Lily On The Plains. 



Lily and her mamma sat down to watch the “ Coun- 
cil ; ” for this was an important occasion. The Chiefs 
had come to make peace for their young men, and 
beg they might not be punished for their disturbance 
of the night before. 


SPOTTED TAIL, WIFE AND DAUGHTER. {From photograph^ 

The oldest Chief of all, who wore a white rag tied 
0ver his head like a night-cap, solemnly lighted a 
very big pipe, smoked a few whiffs and handed it to 
Captain Morton ; he also smoked a moment and passed 
it to a chief on his other side. And so the pipe went 


Lily On The Plains. 227 

all round the circle; for it was the “Pipe of Peace,” 
and must be smoked by all in the Council to show 
their friendly intentions before a word could be 
spoken. 

Finally the old gentleman in the night-cap stood 
up and made a long speech, which was repeated in 
English to Captain Morton by an interpreter. Then 
another Chief arose, and another, and another, until 
all had spoken, and they all said very much the same 
thing. They'were sorry for the way the young war- 
riot^ had acted, and they knew “ the Great Father in 
Washington ” was right to take bad Indians and put 
them in prison, and they hoped the whole tribe 
would not be punished for the fault of the young 
men. As each Chief sat down the whole circle 
grunted “ Ugh^ ugh!^' to show they approved of what 
he said. 

One very tall, large Indian, with his face elegantly 
painted with green and yellow stripes, was sitting 
close to Lily. She was a little afraid to be near him 
at first, but her papa had told her she must sit quite 
still, so she forgot her neighbor after a while ; but, at 
the end of one speech, he was so pleased with what 
had been said that he gave a great “ Ugh!'^ and 
leaped up from the ground. Poor Lily was fright 


228 


Lily On The Plains. 


ened half to death. She shrieked and then hid her 
face, scarlet with shame, in her mamma’s lap. 

When she shyly looked around again, the “ green 
Indian,” as she always called him, though his real 
name was “ Little Crow,” was smiling pleasantly at 
her ; at last he stroked her long, bright hair, and even 
put his brown hand on Rosie’s yellow curls, for Lily 
had of course brought her dear dolly to the Council. 
At last the “green Indian ” offered Lily a beautiful 
eagle’s wing, the feathers tied together with blue and 
yellow cloth. These wings are very highly valued by 
the Indians, and form a part of their costume at all 
seasons. In the summer they use them as fans. 

After a time Captain Morton told the Chiefs the 
tribe would not be punished this time, but that they 
must make their young braves keep quiet or they 
would get into great trouble and have no more food 
given the tribe ; and then, as is always necessary 
after a Council, sugar, coffee and loaves of bread 
were brought out, and portions given to each Chief, in 
token that the white men were friends again. 


NUMBER NINE. 


G ive it to me this minute ! it’s mine ! ” said 
Lulu. 

“Tisn’t either yours. I found it my very own 
self ! ” said May. 

“ You didn’t ! ” 

“ I did ! ” 

“ I just wish you would go away off, May Stone, 
so’t I’d never see you any more, never, never, so I 
do!” 

“ And I wish you was in the skies, and could never, 
never, never come down again, you hateful thfng I ” 
Twin sisters they were, in the parlors of a hotel at 
Long Branch, disputing over the possession of a cu- 
rious sea-shell. 

A gray-haired old gentleman, who had been an at- 
tentive observer of this little scene, now called the 

229 


230 


Number Nine. 


little girls to his side, and inquired, “ My dears, were 
you ever ‘ Number Nine ’ ? ” 

“ Ah ! ” continued he with a bright smile, “ I see 
you don’t understand me. Well, I was ‘Number 
Nine ’ once, and considered it a most grievous misfor- 
tune, too. Yes, I was ‘ Number Nine ’ ; that is, there 
were eight stout, ruddy, rollicking boys in the family 
circle when I, with my little bald pate and toothless 
gums, made my appearance to swell the number to 
nine ; and, although I had a bona-fide, genuine name 
— the charming one of Aminadab — I was most fre- 
quently styled simply ‘ Number Nine.’ Now, I didn’t 
fancy being the last of a long line of boys ; and I’ll 
tell you why. In the first place, I was forced to mas- 
ter Arithmetic through mammoth grease-spots, re- 
minders of my eight brothers’ cold lunches ; Geogra- 
phy from under great blots of ink j and spelling with 
the serious draw-backs of here and there a letter or 
word missing. Secondly, in addition to the worn-out 
books of my eight brothers, I fell heir to their cast-off 
clothing as well. Again, I was obliged to yield the 
easy-chairs and many other coveted pleasures to the 
older lads ; and to run upon errands for them until my 
feet would ache, my blood boil, and my tongue be al- 
most — never quite — up to the point of asserting a 
new Declaration of Independence. Again, father. 


Number Nine. 


231 


being very systematic, very orderly, invariably served 
us at table according to our ages, commencing at the 
eldest, never on any account skipping one in favor of 
a younger, hungrier stomach, and it would appear to 
me, sometimes, that my turn would never, never come. 
No, I didn’t enjoy being ‘ Number Nine.’ 



A MOST SINGULAR- LOOKING VEHICLE. 


“One summer a comet of unusual brilliancy and 
length of tail flashed into the heavens, exciting great 
interest and curiosity in many minds, and in none 
more than in mine, for in my small way 1 was exceed- 
ingly fond of astronomy j and so, when an announce- 
ment appeared in our village paper that on a certain 
evening there would be an opportunity of viewing the 


232 Number Nine. 

wondrous comet through a telescope, I was all eager- 
ness and excitement. But we could not all go ; and, 
as usual, I was the one to stay behind. And I felt 
very bitterly over it, I can tell you. Next afternoon 
1 was lying on the shady side of a freshly stacked 
hay-mow, idly listening to the merry chirping of the 
crickets in the grass, and the lazy hum of bees, but 
brooding over my trials and tribulations, as I styled 
them. 

“ Suddenly a man stood before me with the startling 
inquiry, ‘ Would you like to visit the comet ? ’ 

“ ‘ Follow me, then,’ continued the stranger without 
waiting for the eager assent which I was about to 
give ; and he led me out into the road where was 
standing a most singular-looking vehicle, formed 
somewhat like a car, but with a pipe emitting volumes 
of smoke in front, and with great black wings similar 
to those of a bird, on either side. Into this queer 
machine my conductor lifted me. He sprang to the 
seat at my side ; the steam went puff ! puff ! the 
wings flapped leisurely ; and gently, slowly, almost im- 
perceptibly, we rose into the air to the height of the 
hay-stack near which I had but just now been lying. 
Further into airy space we ascended until our old 
farm-house appeared but as the tiniest of cottages, 
and the village church a very insignificant edifice in- 


]Vumber Nine. 


233 


deed. Higher ! higher ! The horses at work in the 
fields, the cattle browsing on the hills, the wagons 
standing before the barn, seemed like toys with which 
children play; the people like ants as they moved 
about on their several ways ; and the winding stream 
like a silver strand as it stretched on and on. 
Higher! faster! trees, houses, rocks, hills, blending 
into one confused mass as we passed beyond the 
clouds and looked down upon the lightning and the 
rain. On we flew through the light air towards that 
great, round, fiery ball, in the center of which, formed 
by a galaxy of bright stars, I could distinctly trace a 
large figure ‘9.’ On ! with the speed of the wind ! 
The large figure had broken into thousands, millions 
of little 9 ’s, sparkling, shimmering, dazzling. On ! 
on ! the bottom of the vehicle grated upon the pebbly 
road ; the man in charge placed me upon the ground ; 
the strange machine once more rose into the air, and 
I was left alone. 

“After a moment’s bewilderment I looked about 
me, and was amazed, delighted, at the scene which 
met my gaze. There was on one side a great forest, 
filled with mammoth elms, maples, oaks, taller much 
than our tallest poplars, whose foliage, shining, luxuri- 
ant, was of the most delicate blue, like earth’s sum- 
mer sky ; carpeted with a soft, rich, velvety grass and 


234 


Number Nine. 


moss of a similar tint to that of the silver-lined 
leaves ; and everywhere walked or flew wonderful birds, 
of rare size, gorgeous plumage and matchless voice. 
On the other side extended a vast field of nodding flow- 
ers, through which flowed a stream clear as crystal 
and filled with fish of shining gold. Above 
stretched a sky of the faintest pink with here and 
there the daintiest of dainty white clouds. 

“ I was charmed, entranced ; but it was not until I 
had grown somewhat accustomed to the novel scene 
that I observed one remarkable peculiarity of the 
place — that everything bore some reference to the 
figure ‘9.’ The giant trees of whatever sort or de- 
scription were trained to form it ; every blade of grass, 
every leaf, every flower, bore it somewhere upon .its 
surface ; the crystal stream traced it in its wanderings \ 
the shining leaves as they rustled to and fro in the 
balmy air, sighed it ; the brook babbled it \ the crick- 
ets chirped it ; the insects hummed it ; the birds, each 
in its own tone, warbled it ; and a solemn old owl 
hooted in stated measure, ‘ Num-her Ni-ine / Num-ber 
Ni-ine / ^ 

“ However, I did not speculate long upon this 
strange phenomenon. Happy, delighted, I rambled 
on until I came to a high stone wall, through one of 
the openings of which I saw a great city, whose tall. 


Number Nine. 


235 


massive buildings were constructed of solid stone, 
and along whose broad streets men and women of gi- 
ant stature were hurrying to and fro, all wearing fan- 
tastic caps from which depended nine tiny little 
bells which tinkled and jingled with a soft, silvery 
sound at every motion. 



“On we flew — ON, on 1 ” 


“ Of course I entered the city, and I was immedi- 
ately met by a huge monster who was bigger than 
any two of the tallest men I ever saw. I turned to 
run, but It detained me by an immense hand, and 
then, strange to say, spoke to me in a kind, reassur- 
ing tone. It asked me a great many questions and 
examined me curiously. When it said ‘ Come home 


236 


Number Nine. 


with me/ I knew, someway, that it was the Comet 
King. Immediately we stood before a palace built 
of polished, blue-gray marble, surmounted by cupolas, 
turrets, domes of the finest cut-glass, and ornamented 
all along its smooth beauteous sides by rows of stained 
glass windows. 

“ I was eager to enter, but It said, ‘ No, no, you 
must wait until your eight brothers have been in.’ 

“ I turned away and burst into tears of vexation 
and rage. I was still ‘ Number Nine.’ 

“ ‘ Do you see yonder broad river ? ’ It asked. 

“ I did see it rushing madly, tumultuously along, and 
also saw a little boat tossed about on its rolling waves, 
rowed by a single man, an old man with bowed form 
and silvery locks. 

“ ‘ Well,’ It said, ‘ I am sorry for you, Number 
Nine. I will have one of your brothers, whichever one 
you may designate, rowed to the opposite shore, 
where it is eternal night and wilderness. He can 
never return, and thus you will have at least one less 
to wait for.’ 

“ Delighted, I dried my tears, and ceased my sob- 
bing. And now, which boy should I select.? I 
started to my feet and paced the square in front of 
the palace door with knit brow and clenched hands ; 


Number Nine. 


237 

but all to no purpose. I could not make the selec- 
tion. 

“ ‘ Well, which one, “ Number Nine ” ? ’ asked It. 

“ But somehow, the more I tried to make haste, 
the less haste I made. Which of my many brothers, 
indeed, would I be willing to spare forever from out 
my home and life? Certainly not Will or Jimmie, 
my willing assistants in study ; not John, who so 
many times undertook my tasks in addition to his own 
in order that I might have the more leisure for play ; 
not George or Henry, who were ever ready to mend 
my battered sleds and toys ; not, surely. Bob, merry, 
light-hearted Bob ; and by all means not Ed or Joey, 
my dear play-fellows and companions. 

“ ‘ I am waiting,’ politely said It. 

“ Oh, dear ! I could not make a decision ; and, be- 
sides, I was beginning to feel a faint impression that 
I did not wish any one of the eight sent away, after 
all. At last I hinted as much to my companion. 

“ ‘ Pooh ! ’ said It very impolitely. ‘ Nobody could 
blame you. If you wait for eight, when will you get 
in — think of it ! I would dispose of one of them.’ 

“ ‘ No !’ I cried in terror. ‘ My own, own brothers 
— never ! No, if I never the wonderful palace ! ’ 

“ ‘I see I must take the matter into my own 


238 


Numbed Nine. 


hand^,’ said It, turning from me ; and to my terror 
I saw him signal the old boatman. 

“ I seized the mighty arm — I cried out — but the 
great hand only patted my head. ‘ Foolish little 
“ Number Nine ” ! ’ It said. 

“ I wrung my hands, I sobbed aloud, threw myself 



Joey, blowing the dinner-hokn. 


upon the ground with a hammering in my brain, a 
choking -in my throat, and a heavy weight of anguish 
at my heart. 

Suddenly a mighty clock, , the clock of Doom, 
clanged out :i!2!3!4!5!6!7!8!9! 

.“I opened my eyes with a start, and there stood 
Joey blowing the dinner-horn close at my ears. 


Number Nine, 


239 

“ ‘ I guess you have been asleep, “ Number Nine ! ’ ” 
he cried merrily. 

“ I don’t suppose Joey ever knew what prompted 
the energetic hug with which I jumped at him, nor 
the boys the cause of my unusually kind and affection- 
ate manner for a few days ; but I knew, and I never 
forgot.” 

The little girls slid quietly down from the old gen- 
tleman’s lap while he was wiping away his tears, and 
walked away without a word. But out under the cur- 
rant bushes their little arms stole around each other's 
waists ; their lips met in a loving kiss ; and Lulu said 
earnestly : 

“You may have the shell, sister, and I don’t want 
you to go away one bit.” 

And Mary replied quite as earnestly, “ And if you 
was taken up to the skies, I would be so sorry ! ” 


THE SECRET OF THE TREES. 

HO would have thought those solemn trees 



V T in the dark old forest had a secret, folding it 
closer in their great staunch hearts season by season 
with new layers of bark, and keeping it safely so 
many years, till Echen found it out? 

Perhaps the birds knew, or the squirrels ; or the 
wild beasts listening in the dead of night could inter- 
pret the rustling of the leaves as they softly whispered 
the secret over. 

Had any human beings heard, they would have said 
it was only the wind sighing among the leaves j and 
the trees would have laughed, and shook their wise 
old branches, and said : 

“ O, you mortals ! the time has not yet come for 
you to know our speech. All nature is ringing with 
voices you cannot understand. How you would open 


240 


The Secret of the Trees. 241 

your eyes if you knew the secrets we talk about every 
day ! ” 

Echen found out one of those secrets, and that in 
a very strange way. 

She had been sick for a long time, and her mother 
said : 

O, if we could only send our Echen home to the 
Vaterland, where she could see the dear, big grand- 
mother spinning yarn and making cheese, and the 
dear little grandfather burning charcoal fires in the 
forest, she would be sure to get well. There is no 
place like the Vaterland;” and tears rolled down 
Frau Offermeyer’s cheeks as she thought of her 
childhood’s home in the Odenwald which she had 
left to come to America when she married Carlow 
Offermeyer. 

She had had a hard struggle since then with pov- 
erty and sickness ; and her heart ached bitterly as 
she watched Echen growing thinner and paler day by 
day, and feared it would not be long before she laid 
her beside her three other little children in their 
graves in this strange land. So she thought day and 
night about how she could send her to the dear home 
country where the roses would bloom on her cheeks, 
and she would grow strong and well. 

One day Carlow came home and said he had found 


242 


/ 


The Secret of the Trees. 


a man and his wife who were going to the Vaterland. 
They lived in the Odenwald, many miles from Frau 
Offermeyer’shome j but their hearts were large and 
tender, and when they heard of the sick child they 
oifered to take her to her grandmother, even if they 
did have to go out of their way ; for they, too, said 
there was no air like that of the Odenwald for mak- 
ing sick people well, with its fresh mountain breezes, 
and the aromatic fragrance of its forest trees. 

Carlow and his wife felt much encouraged as they 
gave up their pale child into the loving hands of their 
country-people, though their hearts ached that they 
could not go too ; but it took all their money to pay 
Echen’s passage, and get her a few comforts for the 
voyage. 

So Echen got safely to the dear big grandmother ; 
and she thought she had never seen any woman so 
large and tall as she. 

She wore high wooden shoes, and a short blue and 
white checked woollen dress, with a snow-white ker- 
chief pinned about her broad shoulders. Her face 
was round and rosy, and beaming like the full moon, 
and so full of love and tenderness that the little frail 
child nestled close in her strong arms, feeling she 
had found a safe resting-place after the storm}/ 
voyage. 


The Secret of the Trees. 


H3 


And the dear little grandfather ! He was certainly 
the smallest man she ever saw. His head reached 
no higher than the grandmother’s shoulders, and was 
as white as snow. His face was brown and wrinkled 
as a nut, and his cheeks hard and rosy like a frost- 
bitten apple. His eyes were blue like Echen’s own 
mother’s ; so he found a place immediately in the 
little maiden’s heart ; and though Jie did not talk 
much there was always a mute sympathy between him 
and Echen. 

He would stand beside her bed, — for she had to lie 
many days before the air of the Odenwald made her 
well and strong, — and stroke her head, or pat her 
hand, while sometimes tears would roll down from his 
gentle blue eyes over his rosy cheeks, when Echen 
knew he was thinking of her mother, and grieving 
because he was poor and not able to send her money 
to bring her to her old home. 

Then she would feel sad, and cry, too, and the 
dear big grandmother would come in, and say in her 
cheery tones : 

“ We must not waste our time in fretting, Hans. 
We must trust in the Lord, and he will provide a 
way to send our Rita to us when he sees best.” 

Then the dear little grandfather would smile, press 
Echen’s hand, and trot off to his charcoal fires ; while 


The Secret of the Trees, 


244 

the grandmother would sit beside the little girl with 
her knitting in her hands, and tell her stories about 
her mother when she was a little girl — how she used 
to play and dance and sing in the forest with her 
companions, and swing on the branches of the great 
trees, and have picnic-parties under their broad 
shadows. 

Echen had always lived in a crowded city, and she 
loved to hear about the forest trees. When she sat 
up in bed she could see their tops waving and glisten- 
ing in the sunshine, and she longed for the time when 
she would be able to wander through their green and 
fragrant depths. 

But she did not fret. She was very good and pa 
dent j if she had not been she would not have found 
out the secret of the trees. 

There was one of these stories that had a wonderful 
fascination for her. It happened twenty-five years 
before, and she always felt she was hearing of some- 
thing away back in the middle ages, that seemed 
such a very long time ago. 

It was about a diamond necklace that Frau Horn 
beck — that was Echen’s grandmother — had once 
owned. 

There was a sick man, a stranger who came to the 
door one stormy winter night begging for food and 
shelter. 


The Secret of the Trees, 


245 


The good grandmother took him in and nursed 
him tenderly ; but her loving care could not save him \ 
the fever which had settled upon him was doomed to 
take away his life. 

The night he died he called her to his side, and, 
unfastening a string from his neck, to which was at- 
tached a little silken bag, gave it to her, telling her to 
sell it, and it would make her rich and repay her for 
all her kindness to him. 

When she opened the bag she found in it a glitter- 
ing diamond necklace, and she was afraid to take it ; 
but the sick man told her he had come by it honestly, 
and was on his way to Heidelburg to sell it when the 
fever overtook him, and he had to beg for shelter at 
her door. 

He was too weak to talk any more ; and he died 
that same night. 

The grandmother hid the necklace away in a 
drawer, and almost forgot about it, for the dear little 
grandfather took the fever from the stranger, and was 
very sick many days. 

Now there was a man — Fritz Corner, by name — 
whom Frau Hornbeck hired to cut wood, and shovel 
snow, and do the work the poor sick grandfather used 
to do j and about that time there was danger of a 
war between Germany and one of the other great 
nations of Europe, and Fritz had to join the army, 


246 


The Secret of the Trees,. 


for his name was on the draft-roll, and he had no 
choice but to go and fight the enemy. 

After he had gone, and the grandfather began to 
get better, the grandmother bethought herself of the 
diamond necklace, and went to get it. But when she 
looked in the drawer where she had put it, it was 
gone ; and she knew Fritz Corner must have taken it, 
for no one else had been there. 

She blamed herself for carelessness in leaving it 
where he could find it ; but she was a simple, honest 
woman, and did not dream Fritz would have such a 
bad, wicked heart as to take what did not belong to 
him. 

However, it was gone ; and tliere was no help 
for it. 

Fritz Comer was killed in battle soon after j and 
Frau Hornbeck comforted herself by thinking the 
good Cod did not think best for them to be rich, or 
he would not have let the necklace be stolen. 

This was the story she told over and over to Echen 
as she sat knitting by her bedside ; and the little girl 
always thought with a sigh : 

if we only had that necklace now, we could 
sell it and get money enough to bring my dear father 
and mother here.” 

The room where Echen lay was small, and the walls 
were white and bare. There was a large fire-place 


The Secret of the Trees. 247 

made of red and black tiles, and the hearth-stone 
was a slab from the quarry, ornamented at the edge 
with diamond-shaped red and black tiles. 

In this curious fire-place the dear big grandmother 
would make a little fire towards evening, so Echen 
would not feel the chilly mountain air. 

After the long, quiet afternoon, when the little girl 
had been eagerly drinking in those delightful stories, 
she would bring in several shovelfuls of live coals 
and lay them on the open hearth, and pile on the top 
of them a great armful of branches which were dry- 
ing in the shed, and leave them to burn and crackle 
while she made tea ready for the dear little grand- 
father, who would be sure to come home cold and 
hungry. 

Then it was — when the evening shadows were 
j drawing about the Odenwald, and the bright flame of 
the fire threw strange, fantastic, wavering shadows on 
the white walls of her room — that Echen found out 
the wonderful secret. 

As she lay on her high four-posted bed, her little 
form almost lost in the huge, billowy feather-bed, she 
watched those flickering shadows as they danced mer- 
rily up and down, forming themselves into all kinds 
of queer shapes, and chasing each other so rapidlv 
that her eyes could scarcely follow them. 

When the fagots on the hearth — having burned 


248 


The Secret of the Trees. 


through — would suddenly snap apart, and tumble 
into a new position on the coals, the scenes on the 
walls would change, and a new set of shapes and fig- 
ures dance before her. 

Gradually Echen fancied that these quivering shad- 
ows — which at first had seemed only irregular and 
meaningless — took decided forms and shapes. 

Those straight lines with the wavering masses 
above were the forest trees, bending their leafy 
branches to the breeze. 

Between them, here and there, could be seen what 
looked like stumps, where the mighty monarch of 
the forest had fallen beneath the woodman’s axe. 

Then there were figures moving up and down 
among the trees ; little men with axes on their 
shoulders would stride along the narrow paths, or 
chop vigorously at the trees till they fell, with a tre- ^ 
mendous wavering and fluttering of their branches — 
but no sound. All was still as death as these pict- 
ures formed themselves before Echen’s eyes. All 
that could be heard was the crackling of the dry 
boughs on the hearth, and the gurgling of the pitch 
as it was driven forth by the heat. 

Sometimes tiny children ran under the trees, stoop- 
ing now and then as if to pick a flower, or flying 
high in the air on a swing fastened to a strong branch. 



THE SECRET OF THE TREES. 



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The Secret of the Trees. 251 

Sometimes a table seemed to be laid in an opening, 
while around it gathered a crowd of men, women, 
and Children, who seemed to enjoy their out-of-door 
feast, and danced merrily in a ring afterwards. 

Echen could not help associating these pictures 
with the stories her grandmother had been telling her 
about her mother’s early life — how she played in the 
forest, and had picnic-parties under the branches with 
her companions ; and they were doubly interesting to 
her that she could thus link them with thoughts of 
that dear mother for whom her little heart was often 
very sore and homesick. 

There was one picture she could not make out 3 
and it puzzled her greatly. 

All the others came to be as clear and distinct as 
any landscape painted by the hand of man, but 
this one seemed a blurred and meaningless tangle. 
It came every day, just the same, and just about the 
same time — that was when the w'ood was nearly 
burned out, and the room was beginning to grow dim, 
when the last flashes of light from the dying embers 
were playing hazily over the walls, and the charred 
sticks were dropping down on the hearth. 

One night when she had watched it intently with 
the same result as ever before, her grandmother came 
in with a fresh armful of wood. 


352 


The Secret of the Trees. 


’ “The grandfather is late,” she said; “and these 
will make the room cheerful while I bake a hot cake 
for his tea ; for the wind is rising, and he will bexold 
and hungry after his long walk.” 

She piled the wood upon the hearth, kissed Echen 
and went out. 

The fire made a great hissing and crackling as it 
caught the dead leaves hanging on the branches ; 
then the hot flame blazed up, and soon the vwliole 
mass was on fire, wavering and gleaming and throw- 
ing forth those same old pictures on the wall. 

Suddenly a shower of sparks flew out into the 
room ; and, instead of dying away in a few seconds, 
as they always had before, they danced about as if 
they had life. a 

Why, what were they ? 

Echen sat up in bed and opened her big, blue eyes 
to their widest extent. 

The tiny creatures — for such they seemed, settled 
on the posts of her bed, on the coverlet, on the pil- 
low, while one daring little fellow alighted upon her 
hand. 

They were all alike, with T)rown, scaly bodies like 
the trunk of a tree," wings that rustled like the leaves 
and eyes flaming like coals of fire. 

The one on Echen’s hand, saw she looked frightened, 


The Secret of the Trees. 


253 


and, hopping off on the bed beside her, spoke in 
a voice that sounded like the gurgling of sap in 
spring-time. 

“ O, wise Echen ; good Echen ; we are the spirits 
of the burning trees. You have read, and read 
aright, the pictures we have shown — all but one. O, 
study that deeply, for in it lies the key to more than 
you think. 

“ When we were growing in the forest we watched 
the scenes that were daily enacted about us ; they 
were all indelibly impressed upon our hearts, they 
grew into us, never to be effaced, never to be worn 
away, bound about with fresh fibres every year, and 
strengthened and preserved by the life-giving juices 
that flow through our frames. But when we are burn- 
ing, and our life is ebbing away, as our bark unrolls 
and the sap oozes out, we throw forth, in the flicker- 
ing lights and shades that come from our dying 
breath, the shadows of those scenes we have 
witnessed. 

“ Everyone cannot understand them ; only because 
you have been good and patient, Echen, has been 
granted to you the power to read our hand-writing on 
the wall. Study carefully that other picture, for great 
good will result if you interpret it aright.” 

The spirits of the burning trees were gone ; and 


^54 


The Secret of the Trees, 


Echen rubbed her eyes, and wondered if she had 
been dreaming. 

The wood had nearly burned away ; the embers 
were dropping upon the hearth, and the shadows on 
the wall taking those indistinct shapes that had so 
often puzzled her. 

She lay down now, and watched them quietly, 
patiently, for a long time, gazing as intently and ear- 
nestly as if her very life depended upon it. 

After a while the confused, irregular jumble did 
seem to form itself into something like trees — those 
trees that were in every picture she saw. 

There was one very strange-looking tree, with a 
gnarled trunk and crooked branches, and leaning 
sideways as if blown over by a storm. 

When she had made this out distinctly, she saw, 
creeping under the shadow of the other trees, the 
picture of a man wdio peered cautiously over his 
shoulder as if fearful of being watched. 

When he reached the crooked tree he began to dig 
about its roots, and when he had made what seemed 
a deep hole he took something from his pocket, 
dropped it into the hole, covered it up and hurried 
away. 

The next thing Echen knew she was in the dear 
big grandmother’s arms, who carried her into the warm 
light kitchen, where she had tea with the dear little 


2 'he Secret of the TreeC, 355 

grandfather, and helped him eat the hot cake baked 
for him. 

The next morning Echen said to him : 

“ Grandfather, is there a tree in the forest with a 
crooked trunk that looks as if it was blown sideways 
by a storm ? ” 

“ Cut down,” said the grandfather. 

“ Do you know where the stump is ? ” asked she 
again. 

The grandfather nodded. He never wasted words. 

“ Then come close to me, dear grandfather,” whis- 
pered Echen. “ Will you take a spade and dig about 
the root of that stump — dig deep, deep, till you find 
something ? ” 

The dear, gentle little grandfather nodded again, 
then took his spade and started off, never thinking 
of questioning what the child expected him to find. 

He would dig for her — if she asked him — clear 
through to the other side of the world, he loved her 
so much, and be quite satisfied when he got there if 
she told him to fill the hole up and leave it. 

All that morning Echen was very restless ; and, at 
last, her grandmother had to put aside her spinning 
and carry the little girl up and down the room. 

“ Let us stand at the window,” said Echen, “ so 
we will see grandfather when he comes.” 

“ He will not come till night,” said the grand- 


256 


The Secret of the Trees. 


mother ; nevertheless, to please the child, she stood 
by the window with her. 

In a few moments they saw the grandfather emerg- 
ing from the well-worn path which led him to his 
daily work, and running as fast as his little legs could 
carry him. 

Echen trembled all over. 

“ Hush, darling,” said her grandmother — though 
her own heart throbbed at seeing him at this unusual 
hour, and running as if pursued. She thought a wild 
beast had attacked him in the forest. “ Hush, dar- 
ling j don’t you see he is safe ? Look ; he is almost 
here.” 

By this time he had reached the cottage, and 
throwing open the door stood panting and breathless 
before them. 

Without saying a word he thrust his hand into his 
pocket, and drawing from thence the lost diamond 
necklace, glittering like a rainbow, threw it into the 
dear big grandmother’s lap. 

“ O, Hans \ where did you find it ? ” she exclaimed. 

The dear little grandfather’s eyes were twinkling 
with tears ; and he could only point to Echen, who 
then told her wonderful story about the pictures on 
the wall. 

“0, our Rita! ” cried the grandmother; “now sh^ 


The Secret of the Trees. 257 

and Carlow can come to us ; ” and tears rolled down 
her round, full-moon face. 

In the midst of this rejoicing the Curd walked in. 

When he saw them all in such a state of excite- 
ment of course he wanted to know the cause of- it \ 
and the grandmother told him how the diamond neck- 
lace had been lost for twenty-five years, and just 
found in such a strange and wonderful way. 

The Curd was truly glad, and rejoiced with them 
over their good fortune ; but he opened his eyes with 
astonishment when he heard about Echen’s pictures 
on the wall. 

He took the little girl on his knee, and questioned 
her closely. 

She tolcf him all about the forest scenes which the 
trees had thrown upon her wall with their dying 
breath ; what the spirits of the burning trees had 
said to her ; and how she had seen the shadow of 
Fritz Comer as he hid the necklace under the crooked 
tree. 

When the Curd had heard this he went away ; and 
as he kissed Echen on her forehead, she fancied she 
heard him say, 

“ Hidden from the wise and prudent, and revealed 
unto babes.” 

The diamond necklace was taken to Heidelburg 


V 


250 The Secret of the Trees, 

without delay, and sold for a great deal of money \ 
then Rita and Carlow Offermeyer came back to the 
V'aterland, to their home in the Odenwald, where they 
liv'ed happily for the rest of their lives ^ith the dear 
big grandmother, and the dear little grandfather, and 
Echen, who soon grew strong and well, and danced 
and played and sang under the forest trees — those 
trees that ever after seemed like dear living friends 
to her. 


Before I close this story I want to say a few words 
about the Curd. 

There were two sides to his nature ; one was sim- 
ple and gentle as a little child \ that was what drew 
all little children towards him, and made them love 
him and like to be with him. 

The other side of his nature was thoughtful and 
scientific. He liked to study and dig into strange, 
new discoveries and theories, and spend much 
time searching in musty old books, and making 
experiments which quite disgusted Gretchen, his tidy 
old house-keeper. 

So you may be sure his busy mind began to think 
it over ; and, instead of setting it all down as the 
fanciful imagination of a sick child — as we practical 
people on this side of the water would most probably 
do — he drew from it a beautiful theory, so based 


The Secret of the Trees, 


259 


upon scientific facts that the most incredulous could 
not doubt it would some day be reduced to the most 
practical simplicity. 

When he had thought a great deal about it, he 
began to write a book ; and, as it has been my good 
fortune to obtain some of his manuscript, I will lay a 
few passages before my readers to show how sensible 
and reasonable his theories are. 

“ If we study the lives and the thoughts of little 
children,” he says at the beginning, “ we will find they 
have revelations by the voice of nature which do not 
come to us, so worldly-wise that we accept noth- 
ing but what is established by most undoubted proofs 
and evidences. ‘ Give us a sign,’ we say, when the 
most astonishing miracles are enacted before oui 
very eyes. Let us come with the hearts of little chil 
dren, and the mind and intellect of mature manhood, 
to the contemplation of this wonderful principle 
— comparatively new to the world — yet which com- 
prehends such tremendous possibilities.” 

He then goes on to state his. theory, which coincides 
almost exactly with that of Baron Ruchenbach, of 
Vienna, that there exists throughout the universe a 
strange, subtile principle by which we stand in a con- 
nection of mutual influence with, not only this world, 
but the whole material universe. 

I pass over the expanding and unfolding of thi'5 


26 o 


The Secret of the Trees, 


theory, sustained, as it is, by appeals to well-estab 
lished principles of science, and come to a passage 
near the end of the book. 

Having proved most satisfactorily that our thoughts, 
words and actions make a lasting impression upon 
the material world, he then says : 

“ If we believe all this in its fullest sense, think 
what spies upon our daily lives are the inanimate 
objects of nature by which we are surrounded. Think 
how our good and evil deeds may some day be cried 
out from those masses of stone, or, as the Prophet 
Habakkuk has it, by * the beam out of the timber.’ ” 

Then comes something which has particularly 
struck me. It may sound fanciful, and, seemingly 
drawn from what the spirits of the burning trees told 
Echen, not much to be relied on ; however, I give it 
in the Curd’s own words, and he is responsible for it. 

“ Scenes enacted in the solemn old forests, under the 
shady boughs of giant trees, may stand revealed in 
all their reality when the test of fire is applied to 
them : then the secrets, good or bad, which have been 
photographed for so many years upon their hearts 
may flash forth in shadowy pictures on surrounding 
objects, plainly to be seen and read by those whose 
hearts and minds are not too warped and incredulous 
to believe there are philosophies in heaven and earth 
not yet dreamt of bv man. 


The Secret of the Trees. 


261 


C 


“ So some day our sight may be^keen and spiritual- 
ized enough to read in the blazing coal fires — not 
those castles and houses, trees, solemn pageants, and 
all queer, fantastic figures which from time immemo- 
rial have been seen by watchful eyes in the firelight — 
but the real scenes which were enacted about them 
when those coals were living trees, far away back in 
the old geologic ages. 

“ I believe this will 5'^et be reduced to a science, and 
wonderful light be thrown upon those primeval times, 
now so hazy and indistinct, and which have given rise 
to so many differences of opinion.” 

But, though this Curd is a man of boundless good 
nature, I fear I will put it to too severe a test if I 
go on. 

His book will be published before long, when I ad- 
vise all interested in science and discovery to read it. 


TIB’S CAP. 

I T had been a new one, and when Tib’s father 
bought it, that young gentleman was excessively 
pleased with it, and of it promised to take the 
best of care. But, like most of Tib’s promises and 
caps, both came to grief — the cap in particular. Not 
but that Tib meant to keep his promise ; he certainly 
did ; and when first the handsome plush affair was 
placed on his curly head he felt several inches taller, 
several years older, and positively refused to engage 
in any such childish pursuit as a game of marbles 
with Will Hobbs. But then caps will grow old — 
Tib’s did. It generally took only three days for 
Tib’s caps to become old, and when they did get into 
that sad condition, woe be unto them ! 

Now Tib possessed this cap in patience for just 
four days. He kept it carefully, brushed all atoms 

of dust from its furry surface, deposited it scrupu- 
262 


TWs Cap. 


263 


louslyon its appointed peg, and, in all ways, endeav- 
ored to preserve it. But on the fifth day, while on 
the way to school, the cap experienced a sudden 
“ taking off,” by being knocked from Tib’s head by 
Will Hobbs. At first, Tib was inclined to resent this : 
but when one boy gave it a kick, arid another boy 
followed it up, and then another and another, Tib, 
much to his surprise when he reflected about it 
afterward, fell into this friendly game of football and 
kicked the cap about as industriously as the others. 
And ther tlfs cap immediately became old. Tib lost 
all respecu for it, and used it and abused it accord- 
ingly, and in a variety of ways. 

He put eggs in it, and started for the house, and 
then in a moment of patriotic enthusiasm swung the 
cap against a post, and crushed the eggs. He used 
it to mix chicken-feed in \ to convey sand while he 
was building a dam ; to serve as a muzzle for Carlo. 
He fastened it to a long pole, and used it as a seine 
to entrap unsuspecting minnows, and. On one occa- 
sion confined a mouse within it, and carried his pris- 
oner to school. The mouse, however, was not con- 
tented j its sharp teeth very speedily cut through the 
side of the cap, and escaped. But the cap was left, 
what there was of it, and Tib was happy. He con- 
tinued to wear it after his usual perverse fashion — 


264 


Tib's Cap. 


keeping it on his head while in the house, and car- 
rying it in his hand while out of doors. 

“ I don’t know what we shall ever do with that 
boy, he wears out clothes so,” said his father ruefully 
on one occasion. “He don’t seem to care about any- 
thing, and I don’t know as he will ever amount to 
anything.” 

“ I don’t know as he will,” echoed his mother. 

And Tib didn’t either. He pursued the even tenor 
of his way in his usual happy-go-lucky style as the 
days slipped by. And then trouble came to the little 
brown cottage. Mr. Sturges, that was Tib’s father, 
came home one autumn evening in a very despondent 
frame of mind. Something had gone wrong with 
him ; Mrs. Sturges saw that as he sat down in gloomy 
silence at the tea-table. She watched him anxiously 
for a little, expecting him to speak, but he did not. 

“ Why, Philip ! what in the world is the matter ? 
Are you sick ? ” she asked at length. 

“ No ; I’m not sick.” 

“ What is the matter then ? ” 

“ The mill has stopped and I am out of work for 
the winter,” replied Mr. Sturges, sententiously. 

It was Mrs. Sturges’ turn to look gloomy. She put 
the cup of tea, which she had just lifted, back upon 
the table, untasted. “ O, dear ! what shall we do, 
Philip?” 


265 


TiVs Cap, 

•• ] don’t know,” answered Mr. Sturges sadly. 

“We might get along, somehow, so far as living is 
concerned ; but there’s that mortgage ! I expected to 
make a payment next month, but I can’t do it, and 
Squire Murphy is not the man to wait.” 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Sturges after a painful pause, 
“ I suppose if we lose the place we shall be no worse 
off than when we began, but — O dear ! what’s that ? ” 

A loud crashing sound was heard over their heads 
at that moment, a scream of terror, and then a sec 
tion of plastering fell from the ceiling, followed im- 
mediately by a pair of sturdy little legs sticking help- 
lessly in air through the aperture made. The next 
instant Master Tib dropped into the arms which his 
father had fortunately extended to receive him. 

“ O Tib ! how you frightened me ! What were you 
doing up there ? ” asked hi5 mother, yet pale and 
trembling. 

“I — I went up to look for a hornet’s nest,” replied 
Tib, almost too frightened to speak. 

“ A hornet’s nest ? How came you to think of hor- 
nets being about at this season ? ” questioned his fa- 
her sternly. 

“I — I kind o’thought I saw one fly in from out- 
side a little while ago, an’ went up to look, an’ then 
— I come down,” stammered Tib. 

“ 1 should think you did ‘ come down’,” said Mr. 


266 


TiVs Cap. 


Sturges laughing in spite of his assumed sternesS. 
“ And although I admire your directness of purpose 
yet I also think it rather disastrous to property. 
And — how did you get all that molasses on your 
face ? ” 

“Why, Will Hobbs — that is, Will Hobbs an’ me, 
we found a molasses barrel over at Mr. Perkins’ with 
nothin’ in it, an’ we was tryin’ to get the sugar out of 
it.” 

“Yes; that reminds me,” remarked Mrs. Sturges, 
“ I sent you over to the store for fifty cents worth of 
coffee ; did you get it ” 

Tib suddenly became interested in the toe of his 
boot, and studied it intently. 

“ Did you get the coffee, Tib } ” 

“ No’m ; I lost the money,” he answered in a low 
tone. 

“ Lost the money ! Tib Sturges, what in the world 
won’t you do next ? ” she exclaimed, catching him by 
the shoulder and bringing him face to face with her. 
“ It does seem to me that you are one of the most 
careless, heedless boys I ever saw, and whether you’ll 
ever be good for anything, or to anybody, I don’t 
know! Here is your father home to night, out of 
work, and a mortgage on our place, which will be 
foreclosed unless we pay Squire Murphy one hundred 


TWs Cap. 


267 


dollars next month — which I’m sure we cannot — 
and yet with it all you wear out clothes, destroy 
property, and lose money as though we were rich as 
Solomon.” 

Now this was a very severe and unusual remark for 
Mrs. Sturges ; she knew it the moment she had made 
it, and repented as quickly. But the words sank into 
Tib’s heart nevertheless. His face became very so- 
ber, and he picked up his old cap from the floor 
where it had fallen, twirled it uneasily for a moment, 
and then walked slowly out of the room. Mrs. Stur- 
ges called him back presently to supper, and he 
came ; but all that evening he was very silent, and at 
an early hour he went to bed. His mother followed 
him, spoke to him pleasantly, tucked him in, and 
kissed him good night. 

But it was a long time before poor Tib could sleep. 
He lay awake thinking of what had been said. Was 
he indeed so very, very useless ? Would he never be 
of good to anybody, as his mother had said ? only a 
bother and a hindrance to those who loved him ? He 
thought about it for some time, about his father being 
out of work, about Squire Murphy and the mortgage, 
and then his ideas became confused and he began to 
fancy that Squire Murphy had erected a fence around 
the house, and had forbidden the family going 


368 


Tib’s Cap. 


to the spring for water until they paid one hundred 
dollars. And then he knew no more until day- 
light. 

Although the following morning was bright, cool 
and crisp, poor Tib did not seem in his usual spirits. 
He did up the chores without a murmur — his moth- 
er noticed that, and spoke kindly of it — but some- 
how the sober face yet remained. In truth the 
thoughts that had come to Tib during the night, came 
to him again in the morning; and more: what could 
he do to prove that he was not ungrateful, or inten- 
tionally careless or heedless ? What to help his father 
and mother in their present trouble ? Oh ! if only he 
could pay off that mortgage ! But then he could not ; 
he was only a boy ; and one hundred dollars was a 
large sum. Yet he could earn something ; he would ! 
Tib had been slowly walking down the garden path 
while thus thinking, and as he reached the gate he 
climbed up and seated himself on a post overlooking 
the road. 

“Do wish I could get some work,” he murmured, 
taking off his cap and gazing reflectively at it ; “ and 
didn’t wear out clothes so — and caps,” he added as 
he noticed the hole in the side. “ But then I didn’t 
wear out that ; a mouse did that. S’pose I oughtn’t 
to have had a mouse in it, mebbe. Well,” with sud- 


Tib's Cap. 


269 


den energy, “ I’ll never, never have another mouse in 
my cap as long as I live. Wish I knew what to do, 
though.” 

Then his eyes wandered away down the road to- 
ward the village, until they fastened upon a figure 
coming toward him. It was a boy, short, thick-set, 
about Tib’s age, with very red hair, round, freckled, 
merry face, and dressed in garments whose original 
color was indistinguishable from long usage. Tib 
recognized him at once. 

“ Hello, Will ! where you goin’ ? ” 

Master Will Hobbs — for it was that famous young 
gentleman — paused in front of the gate, threw a 
large empty sack he was carrying down on the ground, 
thrust his hands into his pockets and answered briefly : 

“ Coin’ over to Warren’s woods after hickory nuts.” 

“ What you goin’ to do with ’em ? ” 

“ Sell ’em. Perkins says he’ll give me seventy-five 
cents a bushel for all I’ll bring,” remarked Master 
Hobbs with business-like brevity. “ Come along, 
Tib ; this old sack will hold more’n I can carry, an’ 
I’ll go shares with 370U.” 

The offer was certainly tempting, and also in ac- 
cord with Tib’s desire to earn money. He accepted 
it at once, and ran into the house to tell his mother 
about it and get her permission. A moment later he 


3^0 


TiVs Cap. 


was out again, and the two were trudging merrily 
along up the old country road. 

“ I’m real glad you made me that offer,” said Tib, 
after a little, “ ’cause 1 wanted to earn some money 
just awful. I want to help father pay a mortgage.” 

“A — what ? ” Master Hobbs stopped short in the 
road and looked at Tib. 

“ A mortgage.” 

“ What kind of a thing’s that ? ” 

“ Why, it’s a — Oh, it’s a — I don’t know exactly. 
It’s somethin’ that’s stuck on a house somehow, an 
you have to pay one hundred dollars to get it off.” ^ 

“ Pshaw ! I wonder now if we’ve got one on our 
house,” said Will reflectively. “ I’m just goin’ to get 
a ladder an’ climb up an’ look when I get home. On 
the roof, I s’pose? Somethin’ like a lightnin’-rod. 
aint it ” 

“ I don’t know — I guess so,” answered Tib, 
vaguely. 

“ Well, anyway,” continued Will, coming back to 
practical thoughts, it will take a pile of hickory nuts 
to get the — what-you-call-it — off your house.” 

Tib fully agreed with his friend in this, and the 
two walked on, talking about various matters, until 
they were fairly within the woods. 

Now I haven’t space for all the events of this 


Tib's Cap. 


271 


eventful day. The bo3^s had a good time, and they 
also gathered a great manymuts — varying the pur- 
suit with many others of pleasure and profit. They 
chased numerous squirrels, frightened several rabbits, 
and planned pit-falls and figure-four traps for the fu- 
ture capture of the same. They also spent consider- 
able time near a small creek, trying to dig out a 
musk-rat, “ ’cause, you see,” as Will assented, “ we 
can get fifty cents for the skin, if we catch the musk- 
rat.” But they didn’t catch the muskrat. Late in 
the afternoon they emerged from the wood, dragging 
their half-filled sack with them^ and began to gather 
nuts under a large tree by the roadside. 

“ Wish I was just picking up lumps of gold,” said 
Tib, pausing a moment and holding up his old cap 
which he had partly filled with nuts. “ We could get 
more’n seventy-five cents a bushel for ’em, I guess.” 

“ We could pick ’em up if we was out in Califor- 
ny,” said Will oracularly. “ I was talking with old 
Sailor Tom t’other day, an’ he’s been everywhere, an’ 
he says in Californy lumps of gold are lyin’ ’round on 
the ground like there’d been a hailstorm of ’em.” 

“ My ! wouldn’t I like to be there ! ” exclaimed 
Tib. 

“ Shouldn't wonder if you would. See here ! ” 
Will hesitated a moment, and then approached Tib 


TWs Cap, 


and placed his hand impressively on his arm ; “ I’ll 
tell you somethin’ if you’ll never, never tell.” 

“I won’t,” replied Tib. 

“Well,” continued Will in a low tone, “you know 
Dan Kettler?” 

Tib nodded. 

“ Dan an’ me are goin’ to Californy as soon as we 
can get ready ; we’re savin’ up for it now. Dan’s got 
a dollar an’ a half, an’ I’ve got sixty-five cents an’ a 
brass pistol.” 

“ What you goin’ to do with the pistol ? ” questioned 
Tib. 

“ Do with it ? why shoot Indians, of course,” re- 
plied Will, patronizingly. “ There’s lots of Indians 
out there, an’ a feller has got to take care of himself. 
My pistol has a cracked barrel, but I chinked it up 
with putty so it’s most as good as new. It’ll fetch an 
Indian every pop ! ” 

What further conversation the future Californian 
would have made is not known, as at this point the 
conversation was interrupted by a shrill scream. 

“ What’s that ? ” questioned Tib. 

Again the cry was repeated, and both boys hurried 
out to the front. A turn in the road kept them from 
seeing anything, but they heard the screams again 
and again, and also the fierce, rapid strokes of a 


Tib's Cap. 


273 


rx 


horse’s hoofs. In a moment the cause was revealed. 
A light carriage, containing a lady and drawn by a 
large black horse, came dashing toward them with 
maddening speed. It was evident the lady had lost 
all control of the horse, the reins were dragging on 
the ground, and it was quite as evident that the horse 
was running away. 

All this the boys comprehended in a moment. 
Master Hobbs — valiant Indian hunter as he was — 
quickly got out of harm’s way, and stood watching 
the scene with pallid lips. Not so with Tib. He 
knew that just beyond was a narrow bridge, from 
which the carriage would probably be dashed with 
almost certain death to the occupant. He glanced 
about him, but no help was nigh, and then like an in- 
spiration the thought came that he might save her. 
Pale, resolute, with the soft wind playing among his 
curls, he stood in the roadway, holding his old cap 
firmly in hand. On, on came the horse in terrific gal- 
lop, the carriage swaying fearfully from side to side. 
Nearer and nearer it came, until the hot breath of the 
horse almost fanned Tib’s cheek, and then he raised 
bis cap — raised it with its weight of nuts — and with 
all the strength of his small arm, hurled it at the 
horse’s head. And then he knew no more. 

But the missile had accomplished its purpose. The 


i 


274 Tib's Cap. 

old cap had struck the horse full in the eyes, and the 
rattling of the nuts about his head had so astonished 
the animal that he stopped instantly, but, alas ! not 
until a cruel hoof had stricken poor Tib to the earth. 
Master Hobbs came out of his retirement at this 
moment, and caught and held the horse until a fine- 
looking gentleman came dashing up, with his steed 
all in a foam from hard riding. 

“ Thank God ! I find you safe ! ” exclaimed the 
gentleman, springing from his horse and clasping the 
lady in his arms. 

“ Yes, I am safe,” answered the lady with trembling 
lips, “ but I fear it has cost the life of the one who 
saved me,” and she pointed to Tib’s unconscious 
form in the road. 

Judge Warren — for it was the wealthy proprietor 
of the village mills whose wife Tib had saved — 
picked up the senseless figure, placed it beside his 
wife in the carriage, and then bidding Will to follow 
on horseback he sprung into the carriage himself and 
drove rapidly to the village. 

It was a sad home, you may be sure, when poor 
Tib was carried into the little brown cottage that 
evening. . Physicians were instantly called, and every- 
thing was done that could be done, but brain fever 
speedily set in and it was days before consciousness 


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HURLED IT AT THE HORSE S HEAD. 




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Tib's Cap. 


277 

returned. Judge Warren and wife were frequent 
visitors, and many were the comforts they brought for 
the small invalid. At last, one bright day, Tib 
opened his eyes in recognition of those about him. 
The judge, who happened in just then, was at his 
side in a moment. 

“ Well, my little hero, how do you feel this morn- 
ing ? Do you want anything ? ” he asked. 

Tib turned his eyes upon the judge, reflected a 
moment, and then answered feebly : 

“ Yes, sir ; I want one hundred dollars.” 

“ Bless me ! ” and the judge laughed merrily. 
“ Well, Tib, I know what you want it for, but 5^ou will 
not need it for that. Squire Murphy was settled with 
several days ago. However — ” the judge paused, 
and then with a sudden thought added, “ now I want 
you to give me something.” 

Tib looked up inquiringly. 

“ I want you to give me your cap ; I wish to keep 
it as a memento ; and I will give you a new one in its 
place.” 

What a “ memento ” was Tib did not know, nor 
did he know what possible use the judge could have 
for his old cap ; nevertheless he gave it up cheerfully. 
After that his recovery was rapid. Careful nursing 
did its work, and one fine afternoon he walked slowly 


278 


Tib'^s Cap. 


down to the garden gate. And there he saw Will 
Hobbs. That young gentleman also seemed to have 
met disaster, for a bandage was tied about his head 
and pieces of court-plaster decorated his face. 

“ Hillo, Will ! ” called Tib. “ Whafs the matter ? 
When you goin’ to Californy ? ” 

“ Ar’n’t a-goinV’ replied Will, gloomily. “ You re- 
member that pistol of mine, Tib ? Well, t’other day 
I thought I'd fire it off at a rat to see how ’twould 
shoot. An’ I tell you what, it went off sure enough ! 
It just bu’sted all into flinders, an’ knocked me 
clear off my feet.” 

“ That was too bad,” said Tib. 

“ An’ besides that,” continued Will, “ Dan Kettler 
instead of savin’ up his money, as he promised to do, 
jest went an’ spent it all for a pair of skates an’ says 
he don’t care nothin’ about Californy. So I had to 
give up goin’.” 

Tib offered such sympathy as he thought suited the 
direfulness of the occasion, but it was cut short by 
a call from the road. Looking up he saw the judge 
in his carriage. 

“ Wouldn’t you like a ride this pleasant morning, 
Tib ? ” 

‘Wes sir!” answered Tib, eagerly. “I’ll run in 
and get my ca — my hat.” 


Tib's Cap, 


279 

But the judge held up a new one in reply. “ Won’t 
this do ? I promised you one, you know.” 

Tib sprang into the carriage, and the handsome 
new cap was placed in his hands, but he forgot to 
notice its fineness or beauty as he stared in surprise 
at its strange lining — a thick roll of paper around 
the edge, and in the center a package. Tib lifted 
the packet — it felt like a book. Then he looked 
at the roll of paper. 

“ Is that put in to make the cap fit ? ’cause ’tis too 
large ? ” he asked. 

“ Not exactly,” laughed the judge. “ Not to make 
the cap smaller, but to make your head larger. Open 
it, Tib.” 

Tib opened it and found a crisp new bill — the one 
hundred dollars he had wished for — then another 
and another, five of them. On the paper were three 
words : “ For Tib’s Education.” 

“ How good you are ! ” said Tib slowly. Then as 
he surveyed what seemed to him an astounding 
sum of money, he exclaimd : “Whew ! won’t I have 
an awful lot of knowledge! Why that’ll make me 
know enough to be president and have enough left 
to buy a horse I ” 

“ Perhaps,” smiled the judge. “ So you under- 
stand how it is to make your head larger, eh ? ” 


3^)0 


Tib's Cap. 


But Tib’s parents understood the matter far better, 
and appreciated the value of the gift more than he 
could then do. And that afternoon, when Tib had 
invited Will Hobbs to examine his new book with 
him, Mrs. Sturges looked in upon the two boys, deep 
in the troubles of that wonderful sea-faring man, Rob- 
inson Crusoe, and said, without the least intention of 
a pun, as she turned away : 

“ Well ! well ! he can’t half know what good has 
come to him — an education ! That throw just capped 
his fortunes.” 


THE BOY CHICKEN. 


W HAT would you think of a boy who wanted 
to be a chicken 

You would think him a strange little fellow to be 
willing to leave his own, nice, warm bed, and climb 
up on a perch in a dark place to roost with the chick- 
ens, wouldn’t you ? 

Georgie’s father had just moved from town to the 
country, and Georgie took much delight in looking at 
the oxen, horses and sheep with which the farm was 
stocked. In fact he was disposed to be almost too 
friendly with them, and kept his mother in a fever of 
anxiety lest he might go too near their heels ; but his 
chief favorites were the turkeys and chickens which 
he fed every morning at the back door of the farm- 
house. He knew them all and had a name for each. 
There was old Muffy and her brood of chicks that 
looked exactly like straw-colored velvet balls bobbing 
around ; there was Katy, the blue hen ; there was the 
gallant dun rooster, the very pink of politeness and 
281 


283 


The Boy-Chicken, 


devotion ; there were whole families of speckled Dom- 
iniques and snow-white bantams ; but, above all these 
was “ Dandy Jim,” the leader of a host of handsome 
Black Spanish,” that stepped about in a lordly way 
that Georgie admired very much. They roosted in a 



SHAT^iU lA VV'AGON. 


wagon-shed, on poles and perches extending along 
each side ; and Georgie quite envied them their good 
fortune in not having to undress and sleep in a bed 
like “ other folks,” as he watched them filing into 
the dark quiet building, one by one, soon after sun- 
set every evening. 

One day, when he was playing there in this big 


The Boy-Chicken. 


283 


bed-room, seated on the wagon whipping and hallo- 
ing to an imaginary fiery steed which he pretended 
was hitched to it, he cast an eye up toward the 
perches and was surprised to see how very close to 
him they looked. Dropping the twine string which-^ 
he called his “ lines,” he scrambled up and was soon 
balancing himself on the lowest pole, sustaining no 
damage in his ascent save a long scratch on the 
back of his hand, caused by a broken rusty nail. 
He forgot to cry about that, however, so pleased 
was he at his success in getting up there, though, at 
any other time, it is probable he would have roared 
long and loud ; now, he contented himself with rub- 
bing the sore hand up and down the leg of his trow- 
sers a f^w times and then thought no more of it. 

His mind was occupied with the far mightier 
thought of being a chicken, and he resolved to begin 
his career as a barnyard fowl that very evening. 

Presently he heard his father’s voice calling: 

“ Georgie ! Georgie ! ” so he swung himself down 
avoiding the broken nail this time, and ran skipping 
up to the house where he found supper was ready in 
the big square kitchen. His father and mother 
laughed heartily when he unfolded his plan of sleep- 
ing with the chickens thereafter. 

“ You think you can manage to stick on the 


284 


The Boy-Chicken, 


roost while you are asleep, eh ? ” asked his father. 

“ Course I can, papa,” replied Georgie, “ for I tried 
it this afternoon with my eyes shut and I didn’t fall 
off one bit ! ” 

“ But remember it will be all dark in there,” said 



SETTLED COMFORTABLY FOR THE NIGHT. 


his mother, “ and if you were to fall it would hurt you, 
— perhaps break your arm or your leg, and then 
you’d be a little crippled chicken all the rest of your 
life.” 

“ And Georgie,” added his mother, “ w^on’t you be 
afraid of the big hoot-owl that comes out of the 
woods at night to carry off the chickens ? ” 


The Boy Chkken. 


2S5 


“ No indeed ! If a big old owl comes around, I'll 
just pick up a stone and stop his hooting quicker’n 
lightning,” said Georgie bravely. 

But the words did stick a little in his throat; for, 
to tell the truth, he hadn’t thought of any danger and 
it might be a little unpleasant to be gobbled up in 
his sleep and carried off to the woods to furnish a 
meal for the baby owls. 

However, after he had finished his supper, he 
walked out to the wagon-shed where he found the 
chickens affeady assembling. He selected a good 
place for himself and clambered up by the side of 
Katy, the blue hen. She gave two or three surprised 
clucks as much as to say, “ You are a queer chicken.” 

But Georgie shut his eyes and tried to put his head 
under his wing, only as he had no wing he was 
obliged to use his arm instead. It took some time 
for them all to get in and settled comfortably for the 
night, probably because they were astonished to see 
such a strange-looking fowl perched up in their bed- 
room ; but at last all was quiet. 

Meanwhile, his father had watered the stock and 
finished his “chores ” and returned to the house. 

“ Where’s Georgie ? ” he asked ‘ I haven’t seen 
him since supper.’^ 

‘•perhaps he is playing in the yard, somewhere^” 


285 


The Boy-Chicken. 


replied his wife who was busy sweeping oif the back 
porch. 

Mr. Shaw, (for that was the name of Georgie’s fa- 
ther) looked through the yard, in the swing, under the 
old russet tree, out on the garden fence where Geor- 



HE RUSHED OUT OF THE BUILDING. 


gie had a “ see-saw,” and in every place where his lit- 
tle son usually played, but failed to find him. 

“ I do wonder if he has really gone to roost with 
the chickens,” said he as he came back to his wife. 
“ I believe I’ll slip around to the back of the wagon- 
shed and make a noise like an owl, — that’ll bring 
him in the house, Til warrant.” 


The Boy-Chicken. 


287 


“ You will frighten him to death, Joseph ! He 
might fall and get terribly hurt,’’ she expostulated. 

“ O, no ! It’s light in there yet and he can see to 
get down easily enough,” laughed Mr. Shaw as he 
slipped quietly down the path leading to the shed. 

Just about that time, Georgie, whose neck was ach- 
ing from being twisted and held down so long in an 
unusual position, raised his head and looked around 
him. 

Through the dusky twilight that crept in through 
the cracks, he could dimly define the rows of silent 
feathery objects all about and above him. He was 
saying to himself, “ How pretty they look ! I’d 
rather be a chicken forty times over, than a boy and 
have to sleep in a trundle-bed,” when, close to the 
shed, he heard a low, dismal h-o-o-t^ t-o-o-t, tu, 
w-h-o-o / ” 

Georgie straightened up, pricked up his ears and 
listened. It must have been the wind. Hark ! there 
it was again — a little louder than before, and appar- 
ently immediately under him or in a tree close to the 
shed. “ H-o-o-t, t-o-o-t, t-o-o-o-t ! ” it went. 

No, it was not the wind ; it must certainly be an 
old father-owl coming to carry off a chicken to his 
children. The cold sweat -broke out on Georgie’s 
forehead; he felt a shiver run down his back-bone, 
and with a racket and a scrabble he threw himself 


283 


The Boy-Chicken. 


down into the empty wagon, then, stepping on the 
wheel, with one bound he reached the floor with a 
heavy thump and rushed out of the building amid 
the shrill squalling of the fowls that had been rudely 
brought back from dream-land by his noisy descent. 

“ He stopped not for stock, he _ stopped not for 
stone,” not even for the one with which he was going 
to knock the hoot out of the owl“ quicker’n lightning ; ” 
but, looking neither to the right nor the left, he ran 
breathless into the kitchen where his mother sat par- 
ing apples for apple-butter. 

“ Well, Georgie ! what’s the matter ? ” she inquired. 

I thought you were 'Sleeping with the chickens in 
the wagon-shed to-night. Where have you been ? 

“ O mamma ! I was. And don’t you*think, just after 
I had got into a good jolly nap there came an awful 
old owl and — O, my ! but it had the biggest eyes ! ” 

His father, who had entered by another door and 
had been a silent listener, joined Georgie’s mother 
in laughing merrily at this description, but did not 
undeceive him then thinking his little boy’s experi- 
ence might keep him from such exploits in the fu- 
ture ; and so it proved. Georgie was thoroughly 
cured of his desire to change his nature and condi- 
tion, and long years after laughed over the story of 
the time, when, as a boy-chicken, he roosted out in 
the shed with the other fowls, 


PROUTY’S FORTUNE. 


P ROUTY was a tramp. His birthplace was St. 

Louis and that was about all he knew of his ear- 
ly history. He had tramped from St. Louis to St. 
Jo, from thence to Kansas City, and so onward 
until now he had reached the great prairies farther 
westward. 

One day in early autumn, Prouty lay loafing in the 
shade of a hickory tree a- few miles from Ga,rnet 
whither he was travelling. 

He felt hungry, and therefore, low-spirited. In 
general, Prouty was a happy-go-lucky fellow, hand- 
some-eyed, and natur^-lly polite, and so he had met 
uncommon favor from* the communities through which 
he travelled. Everybody said, ‘ Nice fellow — what 
a pity ! ” ^ 


290 


Proutfs Fortune, 


But this morning Prouty had had no breakfast. 
An ill-natured house-wife had set a pack of dogs upon 
him when he had made known his wants at a farm- 
house, and he had been obliged to walk away upon 
an empty stomach. 

As Prouty lay dozing in the shade there was a sud- 
den flash of green and scarlet in his eyes, and he 
heard a girl’s voice : “ Whoa, Wild-fire ! Stand still. 
Wild-fire ! I say.” 

The next moment a small black pony, with a crim* 
son velvet saddle, dashed down the prairie, and a lit- 
tle green-robed figure, its glossy head crowned by a 
scarlet velvet cap, came settling down at his very feet 
like a brilliant bird tumbling from its perch with ruff- 
led plumage. 

“ It’s the first time in my life I was ever thrown 
from a horse ! ” exclaimed the girl as she picked her- 
self up, disdaining the offered hand. 

Prouty had sprung to his feet with an elasticity quite 
unlike his former lazy aspect. “ I could catch him in a 
minute,” he said now, eagerly, looking after the flying 
pony. 

The girl shook her head. “ When he does get 
away we have to let him run till he’s ready to come 
back.” 

But Prouty was racing down the prairie like an an- 


Prouty's Fortune, 


291 


telope ; and in five minutes more it was over. Wild- 
fire, out of the corner of his bright eye, saw his pursu- 
er, veered about and ran in among the trees of a 
strip of timber, and Prouty went in after him, and 
quietly brought him out and walked him back to 
his young mistress. 

“ Well,” said the girl, “ this is nice. I’d like to 
pay you for it. Would you feel insulted if money 
were offered you ? you see I can’t tell from your 
looks whether you would or not.” 

Prouty turned crimson. For the first time he felt 
shame in thinking of the good-for-nothing gypsy life 
he was leading. 

“ Me feel insulted if money were offered me ? ” at 
length he stammered. “ Well yes, I believe I should. 
You don’t know what I am, do you } — I’m glad you 
couldn’t quite see it all.” 

“ Perhaps you are a herds-boy thrown out of work ?’ 
surmised the girl a little curiously. 

“ No, a tramp^^ returned the boy with desperate 
candor. 

An expression of surprise glanced through the 
girl’s black eyes. “ Are you a regular, professional 
tramp ? ” she asked, half turning from him. 

“ A reg’lar,” said Prouty, half turning from her in 
turn — “ seeking my fortune,” he added with a 
laugh. 


292 Proutfs Portune. 

“ Then why don't you stop somewhere and go to 
work ? ” exclaimed the girl indignantly. “ I’d be just 
ashamed to get my living out of other folks ! Why, I 
know girls that would work their fingers off before 
they’d take a crust of bread they did’nt earn — you 
don’t hear of girl-tramps ! ” 

“ Jes’ so,” said Prouty. Then after a minute, he 
said it again with a sort of a sigh — “ Jes’ so.” 

The girl looked at Prouty keenly for a moment as 
he stood against the tree, looking up into the sky, 
with compressed lips. After looking long enough, 
she decided that something might be made of him, if * 
a helping hand were held out to him in the right di- 
rection. 

“ See here, would you work if you had it to, do ? ” 

“ Don’t know,” said Prouty. But he flashed upon 
her from his handsome eyes a shy, grateful look that 
strengthened the opinion she had formed of him. 

“ If you really are seeking your fortune,” she con- 
tinued, “ I believe I can start you on the road. . But 
I should want to find out first what kind of stuff 
you’re made of.” 

“Jes’ so,” said Prouty — but' his girl-questioner 
could see his ears fairly “prick up.” 

“ I kin put myself about it at once,” he added, in 
a moment. 

“ I live just over yonder,” said she in reply, “and 


Proufy's Fortune. 


293 


my name is Frederica Hayes. They call me Fred 
for short, and that suits me, for I always thought I 
ought to be a boy.” 

Mounted on Wildfire and followed by her strange 
acquaintance, this queer “Fred” rode away toward 
a grove, in which a great farm-house soon revealed it- 
self and about it lay the broad rich acres owned by Mr. 
Hayes. It was a pleasant place, and under fine im- 
provement for one lying in the heart of a new coun- 
try. 

Fred was waiting for Prouty at the gate as he came 
up. They walked together toward the barn, she 
leading Wildfire by the bridle. 

“ I didn’t tell you,” she remarked, “ that I’m in 
business for myself and doing well.” Under cover 
of her long lashes, Fred enjoyed Prouty’s surprise 
for a few moments ; then she continued : 

“ I’ve a good sized drove of calves growing for the 
market, and I bought them all with my own money.” 

“ Moneyyour father gave you,” Prouty said quickly. 

“ No indeed, beg your pardon,” said Fred proudly. 
“ I earned it, keeping bees. Raised peanuts and 
bought the bees. Now you’ve got to tend the bees 
for one thing, to prove to me what kind of stuff 
you’re made of.” 

“ I see. Bees sting, and that’s what you want/’ 
Prouty said with -a laugh. 


Proutfs Fortune. 


294 

A roguish smile lurked round Fred’s mouth, but 
she made no answer. 

Any one whom their independent, “ no nonsense ” 
Fred chose to introduce, always met a kind reception 
from Mr. and Mrs. Hayes, and Prouty was allowed 
to remain upon the farm as Fred’s assistant and 
she paid him day wages from her own purse. 

Fred’s apiary was quite extensive, and the care of 
it occupied a considerable portion of her time. At 
this season the bees were swarming, and there was 
honey to be taken up. Fred moved serenely in and 
out among the hives unharmed as though she were a 
queen bee; but Prouty’s experience proved severe. 
He did not understand the art of pacifying the fero- 
cious inse^' and goaded by the loss of honey, they 
poured on iiim, instead of Miss Fred, the violence of 
their wrath. Prouty’s face and hands were pierced 
with stings. But he held steadily, to his work, surpris- 
ing his observant mistress by his tenacity. But she 
said not a word about “ his fortune ” as yet. 

When the bees gave time, the peanut crop was 
harvested. Fred took her hoe, and worked with 
Prouty, day after day, and there were many long 
talks, but not one word of “ the fortune.” 

Finally, one October morning, when the summer 
growth upon the prairie had changed to short brown 
herbage, Fred and Prouty made a trip together. She 


Fred was waiting for Prouty at the gate. 








Prouty's Fortune. 


297 

arranged it one night “ Have the horses saddled at 
eight o’clock,” she said. And then she added with a 
roguish smile, “ I’m going to take you to see ‘ your 
fortune.’ ” ' 

They rode through a range of timber, and on, until 
they reached a point of land formed by the conflu- 
ence of a creek and river. This point was strewn 
with rocks and filled with hollows, and among these 
lay a vast number of bones bleached by the sun and 
rain of many seasons. 

Fred pointed to these bones silently. Prouty 
stared at them, then at her. 

“ There’s a profitable crop for you to gather,” said 
Fred, very dryly. 

Prouty was still more puzzled. 

Said Fred, “ A freshet drowned a drove of cattle 
here some years ago, and left their bones for you to 
speculate upon. There is at least a car-load here- 
abouts. You can ship them to St. Louis and get 
a good price for them. They will be ground, and 
mixed with lime, and the gardeners will buy them in 
the spring to fertilize their land.” 

“ That is an idea,” Said Prouty, throwing up his hat. 
And then he added with sincere admiration, “You’re a 
born speculator if you are a girl ! ” 

Fred, it must be admitted had always felt a little 


Froutys Fortune, 


298 

proud of her “ business resources and she was 
pleased by Prouty’s appreciation. Jes ’ so,’ ” said 
she with a roguish smile. “ Who but you would have 
thought of it ! ” said Prouty. 

“ No one has thought of it or they would have 
been gathered long ago. Cattle plagues have strewn 
the country with bones as white and clean as crystal. 
You might spend the whole year gathering them and 
not exhaust the crop. I wanted to go into it myself, 
but father thought it wasn’t suitable business for a 
girl.” 

Well, Prouty accepted the bones as his “ fortune.” 
Mr. Hayes rented him a team and he went to work 
with all the fast developing energy of his nature. 
The proceeds, as they came in, were invested in 
young stock, which joined Fred's drove, Prouty pay- 
ing for their keeping by picking corn and doing other 
farm work through the winter. 

’ Prouty is now a successful buffalo bone merchant 
on the Plains. But for his handsome eyes, and smile 
that never needed changing, one would not recognize 
in him the young tramp who “ struck luck ” by catch- 
ing Wildfire that autumn morning. He makes a 
yearly visit at the Hayes farm, and Fred is very proud 
of him you may believe. 


LEFT-HANDED LUCK. 


I N THE Meyenberg’s house there were four bed- 
rooms. In one slept the father and mother, in 
another, Barbara Katrina and Sophie ; in the third, Fe- 
lix and Ludwig, and in the fourth, the maid Rosamond. 

On Monday, the 27th of August, 1877, the day on 
which my story begins, Rosamond rang the first bell 
at half past six ; and, in doing so, she dropped it. 
She heard the children laugh as she picked it up, and 
Ludwig called over the stairs : 

“ I say, Rosamond, which hand did you hold that 
in?” 

Rosamond smiled and tossed her head, but she did 
not answer, and went back to her muffins and peaches 
in the kitchen. 

.■r 

When Mr. Meyenberg heard Ludwig call, he smiled, 

and saying, “ It is a good beginning ! ” laid down his 
299 


300 , 


Left-Handed Luck. 


right cuff which he was about to button on, and, in- 
stead, put oil the left one. 

In Uie children’s rooms th^was no little laughter. 
They kept a close watch on each other j and he or she 
who put on a right shoe first, or held a comb in the 
right haad, was at once called to order. 

Down-stairs, Rosamond burned her fingers and 
broke^a cup ; and when she carried the eggs in her 
left hand, she let the basket fail, and the new carpet 
was spoiled ; and that, Mrs. Meyenberg said, was not 
Incky, nor was it a good beginning. 

The children were all a little late ; for dressing had 
been unusually troublesome and unusually amusing. 

At breakfast, tlie coilee-pot had changed places 
with the cups, and had gone to the left, and Mr. Me}^- 
enberg said that he would rather, in the future, have 
hash for breakfast ; he could use a spoon in his 
left hand vei*y well, but it was not so easy to carve 
beefsteak. 

When Sophie took her milk in her right hand, her 
mother told her to put it down ; and there was much 
fun over poor Ludwig, who spilt his coffee, who could 
not butter his bread, and who was, his father feared, 
fatally right-handed. 

That noon Mr. Meyenberg had a check returned 
from bank because the cashier did not recognize his 


L^t-Handed Luck. 


• 30 r 


signature, it being written backward, with the left 
hand ; and at home, Mrs.,Meyenberg gave up her sew- 
ing, as she was not able to use her thimble on a new 
linger. The reform in the family was very thorough. 
They not only used their left hand in preference to 
the right, but they would not use their right hand 
at all if they could help it ; and Barbara drove her 
music-teacher half crazy by playing the air in the bass 
and the chords in the treble. 

Of course they had a reason for this sudden rever- 
sion of their habits ; and, possibly, it was, you say, 
some conviction that, having two servants, it was folly 
to keep one in idleness and to make the other do all 
the work. 

Our two hands are exactly alike ; they have the 
same number of fingers, of joints ; and if the right 
hand has seventy-seven bones, so has the left. When 
the learned men talk of the Biceps flexor, and the 
Brachialis anticus, the muscles of the left arm and 
hand have as much interest in their fine Latin names 
as those of the right. The ligaments in one are woven 
as curiously in and out as in the other ; the nerves 
feel, the blood runs, the pulse beats alike in both ; 
but we treat them very differently. 

Our right hand has all the honor, and it does all 
the work. It writes our letters, carrfes our moneys 


302 Left-Handed Luck. 

works our telegraphs, sets our type, carves, paints, 
sews, lifts, shakes hands, does our sums, draws our 
maps, cuts our magazines, raises the hat in salutation, 
puts the ring on the bride, and baptizes the children. 

The left hand is allowed to help. It holds the 
fork if the right hand is occupied ; it lifts the lid of a 
box, it holds the nail for the hammer ; but when it is 
busiest, it is simply waiting on its brother. It wears 
the rings, and is generally weaker than the other. 

We never allow it to acquire any expertness, and so 
if it ever happens that the right hand is disabled, it 
knows nothing. It has the same flexible joints, but 
they grasp awkwardly j the seventy-seven bones are of 
little use, and as for the Biceps flexor., it turns out to 
be a very valueless muscle when work is in request. 
The left hand cannot sew, nor write, nor draw, nor set 
type, nor fire a gun. It is a poor reliance in the hour 
of need, and the only thing we can do is to call upon 
some one’s else right hand to do what is necessary 
for us. 

It is, therefore, easy to be seen that if the Meyen- 
berg family thought it time to educate their left hands 
they were very wise. 

But no, whatever reason they had for abandoning 
the right hand, the education of the left certainly had 
no influence with them. 


Left-Handed Luck. 


303 


It might possibly, you think, have been on account 
of the connection the hands have with the brain ? 

We have, you know, two brains, or, more properly 
speaking, one brain is divided into two parts, each 
perfect, each having its own work; the business of 
the left brain being to direct the operations of the 
right side of the body, and of the right brain to care 
for the left side. In return, the hands and feet 
strengthen the brain as they use it. So you see, a 
learned doctor says, that if you never use your left . 
hand, the right brain is weakened ; and when paraly- 
sis comes, it has not the same power of resistance 
possessed by the other, and so the left side is para- 
lyzed. 

Mr. Meyenberg had read all this, and had quite 
agreed with the learned doctor that we ought to 
strengthen both sides of the body and of the brain 
alike ; and as it is easy to understand that he would 
not wish any of his family to be paralyzed, this would 
have been an excellent reason for their using and 
educating the weaker half. 

Yet this was not their reason. 

Lt was for luck. 

Left-handed luck ! The way of it was this. They 
had read, or Barbara had, and told them all about it, 
of Dr. Schliemann’s luck, and how he w'on it, as the 
story has been told by Miss Kate Field. 


304 


Left-Handed Luck. 


In the first place Schliemann was not lucky as a boy, 
although, when he was a very little fellow and lived at 
home, he rnust have had a pretty good time. Then 
he was petted, and his father told him stories out of 
Homer’s Iliad^ and he never tired of talking of Troy 
and persisting that, even if the city was destroyed — 
and that much he had to grant — the walls must still 
be in existence. 

He did not care much in these days for stories of 
dwarfs or of mermaids, but the deeds of Hector fired 
his soul, and he would rather have seen Helen of Troy 
than any queen alive. These were, as I have said 
very good times ; but after awhile his father died, the 
family was broken up, and the little fellow had to go 
out into the world to seek his own fortune. 

It did not seem to be a very good fortune that he 
found. His first venture was in a small grocery 
stole, where he sold herring and cheese, went to bed 
late, arose early, and at last injured himself lifting a 
heavy barrel. 

After this his master had no use for him. He 
wanted no sick boys about; and so he discharged 
Schliemann, who now, penniless and ailing, set out 
very forlornly, to seek a better fortune. 

He walked one hundred and thirty miles to Ham- 
burg, begging his meals from house to house. In 


Left-Handed Luck. 


305 


Hamburg he had a relative who put him as cabin- 
boy, on' board a ship going to Venezuela. Here he 
was beaten, badly treated, shipwrecked, starved and 
miserable ; and so he never calls this a pleasant part 
of his life. At last he reached Germany again, and in 
Mecklenberg was so poor he feigned sickness that he 
might go to a hospital and be sheltered. There he 
rested for a little while, and wrote to his Hamburg 
friend who, this time, did better for him, and secured 
for him a situation with a merchant, for whom he 
copied letters, cashed money, and probably ran er- 
rands. 

“ But now,” said Barbara, making a fine rhetorical 
climax, “ see how everything has altered I He is rich, 
he is famous, he has discovered Ancient Troy ; and if 
he never did see Helen, he found her head-dress, and 
his wife had her own portrait taken in it ! When you 
consider that this was all luck, and all because he used 
his left hand, it quite takes the breath away.” 

When her mother said that it might not have been 
all luck, Barbara appealed to Dr. Schliemann s own 
words. He had said it was, and if he did not know, 
who did ? 

The way of it was this : one day, while Schliemann 
was still poor and unknown, he met a man who owned 
a water-cure, and was very prosperous, but who once 


3o6 


Left-Handed Luck, 


had been a tailor, and lived in the depths of poverty ; 
but those bad days were gone and now he lacked for 
nothing. 

Well, he had a secret, but he was generous, and he 
told it to the little Schliemann boy. 

It was certainly a very simple secret. Nothing 
more than to always use your left hand, your left foot, 
first ! 

The ex-tailor had tried it. He had put on his left 
shoe^ his left glove, his left everything, first. He had 
reversed the order of life, and the generally neglected 
members of his body had rewarded him. 

He had recognized their existence; they had 
brought him luck. He prospered. He had given 
up the needle, and taken to the wet sheet, and 
the money came rolling in. “ Now,” he said, '"‘‘you 
do the same. I began late ; I was fifty-seven years 
old before luck turned, but you begin now and have 
a fortunate life ! ” 

Schliemann heeded his advice. From that moment 
his right hand played the second in everything, and if 
his right foot went first into a room it was called back 
and the left took its place. 

At once he began to prosper ; and he now advises 
his friends to try the left-hand experiment. 


Left-Handed Luck. <^07 

“It is easy enough,” he says, ‘‘and see what it has 
done for me !” 

Now, I do not want anyone to interrupt us here, 
and tell how he studied at this time, and qualified 
himself for life ! How he resolved to know English, 
and so how he went to work at it. It is true that 
when he ran, and when he walked, he carried his 
grammar and dictionary under his arm, he read aloud, 
he took a lesson every day, he wrote compositions 
upon Achilles, or Priam, or some such subject ; he 
learned these by heart, and repeated them to his 
teacher. He lived poorly, and spent over half his 
money on his studies ; and in six months he could read 
and speak English. 

That was good luck! 

Then he gave six more months to French, and as 
for Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Portuguese, he was 
such a fortunate fellow that six weeks was enough for 
each of these. 

Then there is the story of his studying Russian. 
He had an idea that it would help him in life to be a 
linguist j but one day he found out that Russian was, 
after all, the one language he needed. The firm for 
which he worked wanted to negotiate with some Rus- 
sians for indigo, but the Russians spoke no German, 


I 


-loS Left-Handed Luck. 

and no one in the town spoke Russian. What was to 
be done ? 

“ This ! ” said the left-handed gentleman. “ J will 
study the language.” 

And he did. -He hunted up some old books and 
set to work. Here indeed was a task ! The lan- 
guage is very difficult. The books were poor, and, 
to make matters worse, were in “ Old Russian.” But 
this last fact Schliemann did not know. Old and 
New Russian were alike to him ! 

In six weeks he was ready to write a business letter 
for the firm. He had not only studied night and 
day, but he had talked. He had no Russian with 
whom to converse, but he hired an old Jew for auditor, 
and for an hour every day the old fellow sat still and 
Schliemann shouted Russian at him. The Jew didn’t 
understand, but perhaps he liked it none the less. 

The next thing that happened to this lucky fellow 
was the offer from his firm of a partnership in Mos- 
cow, with a capital of about forty thousand dollars. 

Of course he took it — with his left hand, I sup- 
pose — and, left foot foremost, went to Moscow. 
Here he was lucky and unlucky \ but he made money 
enough to live easily, and, what is more, after a time 
to sail away to Greece and dig up Troy, and, as Bar- 
bara said, to find Helen’s head-dress in her tomb. 


Left-Handed Luck, 


309 


It is not worth while to tell you how he worked to 
get his money, how he watched the markets, and how 
he bought and sold. He improved his memory, he 
learned to*write a good hand ; when he was over forty 
he went to Paris to study History ; he came to the 
United States, and lived here as a citizen. He mar- 
ried a Greek wife who could repeat the Iliad from 
memory ; and in almost everything this eager, open- 
eyed, enterprising Schliemann was fortunate. 

“ It is nonsense,” said Barbara, when she was tell- 
ing them all this and more, “ to say there is no such 
thing as luck, for there is. Now there are my cana- 
ries j they always die, and Lydia Hanson always has 
such luck with hers.” 

“ If you fed yours regularly — ” began Felix. 

“That has nothing to do with it,” interrupted 
Barbara, speaking very decidedly. “ I have no doubt 
Lyd often forgets her birds, but she has luck with 
everything.” 

“ Yes,” said her father, “ there is Jim Bradbury j 
you remember him, mother ? He and George Lynd 
were in Prince’s printing office together, and they 
both used to say they meant to be rich j and they would 
plan out together what they meant to do. They have 
never parted, that can be said; but Lynd owns 
the concern, and has taken his family to Europe; 


310 Left-Handed Luck, 

while Bradbury is a pressman. Now if that isn’t luck 
I don’t know ; for one had as good a chance as the 
other.” 

And so they had. It was true that Ly^^d made a 
right hand of himself in the business, while Bradbury 
was content to be a left one, and do what he was told j 
and even Dr. Schliemann would not say it was 
lucky to be a left hand. 

Then there is Felix Meyenberg himself. One day 
he met a boy from St. Louis who said something 
about the North Pole. 

“ I mean to go there some day,” said Felix. 

“ Why, so do I ! ” exclaimed the boy. “ I intend 
to discover the passage through.” 

“ So do I,” replied Felix. 

“It’s very curious,” said the boy, “how many peo- 
ple do care for the North Pole. People are all the 
time telling me something about it.” 

“ No one ever tells me,” said Felix. “ I don’t be- 
lieve they would if I were in Greenland.” 

“ I don’t know why they shouldn’t,” replied the 
boy. “ Why, I was once on a steamboat and I said 
something to a man about Polar bears, and he told me 
he had been with one of the parties, cooking for Sir 
John Franklin. We had a good talk, and he told me 
a great deal. As for newspaper scraps, I have a 


3 ” 


Left-Handed Luck, 

whole book of them, and it was only yesterday I saw 
something in a cook-book about keeping meat fresh 
that I thought would be useful.” 

“You’re a lucky one,” said Felix. “ Now, I never 
see such things.” 

“ Perhaps you don’t keep thinking about them as I 
do. I remember once my father asked me if I ever 
thought how common salmon-color was, and I said, 
no, I never saw it anywhere, and he told me to count 
how many times I saw it the next day ; and it was 
ten times.” 

“ That was luck,” said Felix. “ You don’t see 
salmon-color ten times every day,” 

“ No,” replied the boy ; “ but that day' you know 
I kept thinking about it.” 

It was natural, while the boys were talking upon 
such subjects, that Felix should tell his compan- 
ion about Dr. Schliemann, his explorations and his 
luck. 

“Well,” said the St. Louis boy, “if I thought it 
would take me to the North Pole, I w^ould tie up 
my right hand in a sling and make my left handwork 
for both. In fact, I don’t know but I’d take to hop- 
ping and dispense with my right foot altogether.” 

“ It turned Dr. Schliemann’s luck, and I am going 
to try it, for one,” said Felix. 


3 1 2 Left-Handed Luck. 

“ It seems to mef said the St. Louis boy, “ that 
Schliemann’s hard work counted for something. But 
I often think of what my father once said when our 
Jim was complaining of his luck ; 

“ ‘ Suppose you wanted to go to New York, Jim,* he 
said, ‘ what would you do ? * 

“ ‘ Why, I would take the cars,* said Jim. 

“ ‘ Which cars ? ’ 

“ ‘ The Eastern line, of course, — those going to 
New York.* 

“ ‘ You would not take the Southern or Western ? * 

“ ‘ Certainly not,* says Jim. 

“ ‘ If you did,* says my father, ‘ you might get to 
New Orleans or to San Francisco, but I hardly believe 
you would find New York. I should call it good lucls 
if you did. And, Jim, if you were to start without an} 
money to buy a ticket, and were to get a ride in a 
Pullman all the way, I should call that very good luck 
indeed ; but if, while you were standing at the corner, 
wishing you had the money, and that I would let you 
go, you were suddenly to find your ^If in front of the 
Astor House with a pocket full o. ^hver, then words 
would fail me. To say that was luck would be tame.* ” 

“ And so,” added the St. Louis boy, “ that is the 
way this luck often seems to me. If / want a bird in 
he hand, or the two in the bush, I find I have 
just go and trap them 1 ** 


THUSIE’S FOURTH OF JULY. 


I T was different from any other Fourth of July. 

There wasn’t a man, woman or child in Bayfield 
whose blood did not tingle with a patriotic desire to 
“ celebrate,” not only because of the birthday of our 
nation’s liberty, but for the glorious anniversary of 
old Bayfield town itself. One hundred years old on 
this day ! Little Thusie Bassett wouldn’t have been 
in the least surprised if the sun had stood still. It 
would only have been just what ought to have hap- 
pened on this “ Centennial Day.” 

The day was everything that could be desired. 
Early the crowds began to assemble and the village 
green was gay with the happy folk who came proudly 
from their simple homes. Was ever anything quite 
so fine — the singers marching into the dilapidated 
old church with their books \ the tables in the grove 
3h3 


314 Thusie's Fourth of July, 

of fine maples just a little distance off fast becoming 
resplendent under the fingers of ambitious matrons 
and rosy-cheeked maidens; the grand new band, blar- 
ing and drumming so joyously that lazy farm-horses 
came hurrying up the steep hills to be there in time ; 
the little streamers of red, white and blue bespang- 
ling the harnesses ; the big flag floating from the 
church belfry; the cannon booming on the village 
green ? 

Thusie just clasped her hands and sighed. She 
had “run and raced herself most to death,” as Aunt 
Martha observed, thus early in the day. She had 
fallen down and scraped the skin off from a large 
place on her knee ; she had torn a hole in her best 
frock; but what cared she for such slight mishaps ? 
Was she not part and parcel of this glorious Fourth 
of July? Tired as she was she swung her own small 
flag bravely, and glanced with pride at the little bunch 
of red, white and blue ribbons that Aunt Fanny had 
pinned on her white dress ; and then away she went 
again, her small figure curvetting and frisking in and 
out as she “celebrated ” with the otheir children. 

Well, the oration was over. What it was about. 
Thusie, for her life, couldn't have told. But the big 
words sounded fine ; and when, at the end of all the 
names which were conscientiously read by Mr. Slo- 


Thusie's Fourth of fuiy. 315 

cum, the children by a preconcerted arrangement 
stood up and waved their flags, didn't she spring to 
her small feet ! and didn't she wave her flag ! 

And the Township History — to the large-eyed child, 
crowded in on the hard bench, it was simply wonder- 
ful ; and when her dear grandpa’s honored name was 
mentioned, she thought she never should be tired of 
sitting there to listen. But, after a while, the prickles 
began to run up and down her legs, — oh, if she 
could only stick them out straight once! So she was 
not very sorry, after all, when the end came and the 
delighted people began to move about and draw long 
breaths again, and she could descend to the common- 
place pleasures of an every day romp. 

“ Thusie, come here ! ” called Sarah Jones. “ I want 
to tell you something. No, Nelly Smith, you ain’t 
cornin’ ! You’ll go and tell ! ” And Sarah dragged 
Thusie off, and with an arm around her waist and 
persuasion in her voice she told of a secret — O, such 
a great one ! — and enlarged enthusiastically upon it to 
the two or three other girls who were graciously al- 
lowed to join. 

“ Now you see, girls, this is. what we’re going to do. 
Don’t you never tell — ‘ certain true^ black and blue^ 
hope I may die if I do!' you must say ; because, you 
see, it’s a great secret.” 


^ Thusie's Fourth of July, 

“ O, no Sarah ! ” said timid little Frasie Newcomb^ 
“ that’s wicked.” 

“ Poh ! no, you goosie ! it don’t mean anything.” 

What Sarah wanted them to say it for if it didn't 
mean anything, the girls didn’t clearly see; but they 
repeated the magic words. 

“ There now ! I can tell you with some comfort,” 
said Miss Sarah, seating herself on the grass in a shel- 
tered nook, which example was followed by the others 
.till they formed a circle ; then, in a low voice and 
with many mysterious gestures, she unfolded the won- 
derful news. 

“ Well, girls ! you* know the fireworks to-night?” 

At this, Thusie gave an ecstatic little wriggle. Sa- 
rah gave her a push. 

“ Thusie Bassett, you sat on my toe ! ” 

Then she went on : “ Well, you all know we can’t 

see anything on the Green, the folks crowd and jam 
so ; so we are going up into the old belfry / ” 

“ O ! — O ! ” screamed two or three of the girls. 

Shi if you don’t want all the boys coming.” 

“ But, Sarah, I don’t see howf said one of the girls. 
“They won’t let us. You know Deacon Smith said 
nobody must go up there ; ’twan’t safe, he said. He 
said the old shell would break through or tumble off, 
if a great crowd got in.” 


Thusie's Fourth of fuly. 315^ 

“ Anybody knows better than that, and besides, we 
ain’t a crowd ! I guess ’tain’t coming down for five 
girls ! And just think how we can see the rockets 
and comets from the big window I ” 

“ It would be splendid,” said Roxy Thompson, 
“ but I should be frightened most to death, Sarah.” 

“ And isn’t there mice — and things ? ” timidly asked 
Lucia Russell. k 

Thusie said nothing. She knew her mother never, 
would hear to the lovely plan. Besides, she was to 
go with the rest of the family to “ Uncle John’s.” O, 
dear ! if she could only do as she was a mind to, like 
Sarah. 

“ Besides it will be dark, Sarah,” pursued Lucia. 

“ No ’twon’t j it’ll be as light’s anything. Why, the 
fireworks go shooting up, whiz! bang! all through 
the sky,” — and Sarah suited the action by an ex- 
pressive fling. “ I’ve seen ’em when I went down to 
Boston last year.” And Sarah descanted on the glo- 
ries and wonders in store for them till she got them 
wild with, delight and ready for anything. Having a 
he^d. for coijtrivance she had the plan ready for get- 
ting into the church. 

“You know, girls,” she said, “they’ve .decided to 
ring the bell when they’re ready to set off the fire- 
works. Well, when Joe Vance goes up to ring it, 


3i8 Thusie's Fourth of fuly. 

must be all ready to creep up after him. He’s awful 
slow, you know; and besides, he’ll be making such a 
noise with the bell he can’t possibly hear us. And 
I’m going to have my pocket full of candy and we 
can sit up there and see the whole thing just elegant I 
So, Thusie, you be sure and be here. We’re to meet 
under the big oak tree. And Frasie, if you telk 
there’ll be the most awful things happen to you ! And 
Lu, don’t wait to wash all the dishes for your Aunt 
Betsey; she can do ’em for once. And Tildy — ” 

If you want any dinner, come along ; they’re all 
sitting down ! ” screamed Rob Davis, poking his head 
into their retreat with a whoop that made them 
jump. 

Away they all ran, and fireworks and belfry were 
soon forgotten in the glories of that table — a real 
Fourth of July celebration table! Flowers, pyra- 
mids of cakes with flags flying from the apex, cookies, 
tarts, iced loaves, — every cook had done her best. 

Sunset was coming on before the last left the ta- 
bles, and even then Thusie had scarcely thought 
over her promise. She only vaguely realized what a 
forbidden thing she and the others were going to do. 
I think if she had really and fairly reflected upon it, 
she would have refused to have anything to do with 
the whole thing and stood firm. My think always 


Thusie's Fourth of fuly. 


319 


comes afterwards,’^ a little girl once said, and it’s 
most always a sorry think ! 

Well, the sun went down. Great gold and red 
clouds came out all over the sky ; there was one cloud 
nearly white, with deep red borders and a rosy centre, 
on the blue patch that had been so bright all day. 

** See, it’s put on red, white and blue ! ” called 
Henry Carter, and all the children rushed to see. 

“Thusie,” said her mother, as she drew her little 
girl who was racing along with the others towards 
her, “ I am going home now to put Gracie to bed, 
and when you get ready you run right along up to 
Uncle John’s. Aunt Fanny went an hour ago, she 
was so tired.” 

Thusie’s heart gave a naughty little leap. Was 
Anything ever so convenient ! Merry groups were al- 
ready getting “the best places” for a good view. 
She knew it must be time to be at the meeting-place 
under the big oak. Away she ran with rapid foot- 
steps and was soon under its shelter. She was the 
first one there, but in a minute Sarah Jones and 
Tildy Thompson rushed up and threw their arms 
around her; then Lucia came — all there but Frasie. 

“ Why don’t she come, the stupid thing ! ” fretted 
Sarah. “There’s old Joe crossing the Green, now; 
we carCt wait for her any longer.” 


320 


Thusie's Fourth of July. 


That moment Frasie, panting and frightened, hur- 
ried up and was pulled into their shelter. 

What made you so late > ” demanded Sarah. 

“ Oh ! I couldn't help it,” panted Frasie. “ I had 
to run every step of the way. My little brother Teddy 
and cousin Augusta come, and old fat Mrs 

Brown wanted me to get her a chair, and then I tum- 
bled down and — ” 

“Well, never mind,” said Sarah, “you’re here now, 
at last. Come, girls, now for it ! ” And with many a 
whisper and giggle they stole along under cover of 
the darkness alter old Joe who was blundering up 
the stairs, making so much racket himself that he 
couldn’t hear anything else. 

“O, mercy!” whispered Sarah, “I ran my head 
into a horrid cobweb and it’s all in my eyes.” 

“ Sh! ShF' And on they sped lightly. 

“ Frasie Newcomb, you shan't scream, so there I" A 
big mouse, unaccustomed to such interruptions, had 
flounced across the floor right across the children’s 
feet. Clang — Clang ! clingity — dang I How queer 
the old bell sounded up here. 

Joe they could see above them as his figure swayed 
back and forth, and they wondered how he could pos- 
sibly get up there upon the rickety little ladder 
Wasn’t it delightful though, up in this dim forbidden 


Thusie^s Fourth of fuly. 


321 


spot — all shadowy nooks and mysterious recesses — 
lighted weirdly by the lurid glare from the firework 
stand outside. How queer all the people looked mov- 
ing down on the Green. 

“There’s Miss Priscilla Bascom,” announced Tildy 
with a soft giggle, “ Ain’t she funny ? My ! look at 
her nose — it’s a yard long ! ” 

“ Yes ! but O, see what they’re doing there ! ” whis- 
pered Sarah excitedly. 

“ Where ? where 1 ” said Frasie, tiydng to see. 

“ O, Frasie ! you push bad as the folks on the 
Green,” grumbled Sarah, not moving in the least to 
accommodate. 

Just then a most dismal noise sounded close which 
made them all jump and stare in each other’s faces 
in fright. 

“ Oh, what w as that 1 ” whispered Lucia, grasping 
Thusie’s arm. 

Sarah’s black eyes began to protrude a little, but 
she said nothing. 

Hush ! Another awful noise that seemed to the 
frightened girls like thunder ; something ran and 
pounced into a dark corner. They didn’t wait to see 
what it was ; they sped and tumbled over each other 
to get to the landing below^ Thusie’s lovely blue 
sash was grasped by Sarah’s sticky fingers, which had 


332 


Thusie's Fourth of fuly. 


been greedily and slyly diminishing the promised 
pocketful of candy in the da:rkness above. 

Well ! ” gasped Sarah, when at last they reached 
the foot of the stairs, “ I don’t see what there is to be 
frightened at ! ” 

“ What — did you — come for then ? ” choked Thu- 
sie, who had scrambled so she could hardly breathe, 
let alone talk. 

“Why, I didn’t till you all started,” snapped Sarah. 
“ But never mind, here’s a splendid place to see ! ” 
and she ensconced herself at once in the best corner 
of the big, square, front window. It was very dirty, 
being covered with dust and grime, not exactly the 
place that careful mothers would have selected for the 
holiday dresses of their children. 

The grand show of the evening now began. The 
girls held their breath as they watched entranced in 
the dirty old window, crouching together very uncom- 
fortably, trying hard to think they were having a nice 
time. And O ! it was so warm and stifling. 

“ Phew ! How close it is ! Do open the window, 
Sarah ( ” gasped little Frasie at last. 

But it wouldn’t open. 

“ I wish we had staid out on the Green,” wailed 
Tildy. 

Suddenly Sarah screamed. 


Thusie’s Fourth of July. ' 333 

“Why, as sure as you’re alive, they’re going round 
to the side of the church, girls, with that splendid 
wheel of liberty! O, hurry ^ hurry ^ hurry and she 
began to scramble down and pick her way over the 
rickety landing to the belfry stairs. 

“ Wait / ” called out Frasie ; but Sarah sped on. 
They could scarcely see her ahead. They had all 
they could do to follow her, and Thusie, being last 
and catching her dress on a rusty nail by the unlucky 
hole she had acquired in the early part of the day, 
had to stop outright and release it, and so was en- 
tirely separated from the others. Her mates, suppos- 
ing her close behind, reached the front outer door and 
were soon scattered in various directions among their 
friends, and lost in the delightful enjoyments. 

Thusie turned, after going down the stairs, the 
wrong way. Near the foot there was a closet, — a lit- 
tle old musty place for odds and ends — a place that 
very few Knew existed. The door of this closet stu- 
pid Joe had left open when he went for a pole that 
was wanted ; and Thusie, in her bewilderment stum- 
bling along the narrow passage-way, turned into this 
door and f elk headlong over an old worm-eaten stool 
standing in the middle of the floor. She struck her 
forehead with great violence on the floor beyond, and 
knew no more. 


324 Thusie's Fourth of fuly. 

And now the show was over. Everybody was get- 
ting ready for home. Old Joe was locking the church. 

Couldn't any friendly hand rouse little Thusie? 
Aunt Fanny, safe at “ Brother John’s,’’ supposed her 
with her mother on the Green. This was why Thusie 
wasn’t missed by anyone. Couldn’t something have 
whispered to the loving mother as she sat there in her 
low rocking-chair — kept at home herself from Uncle 
John’s by sick little baby Grade, crooning soft melo- 
dies into the fretful little ears — of the danger and 
loneliness that threatened her little Thusie ! 

The old church door shut with a bang. This it was, 
probably, that fairly roused Thusie from the swoon out 
of which she was slowly coming. 

In those first dreadful moments Thusie never knew 
what she did. She groped her way out at last to the 
main passage. There was a window up to which she 
managed to climb and press her frightened little face 
piteously to the pane. From time to time; as she 
had groped her way along, she had called and shouted 
and then paused to listen. She soon began to realize 
this was of no use. 

“ Oh, dear ! I don’t believe I ever could have hated 
Uncle John’s,” she sobbed. “Its just the loveliest 
place ! ’ 

And then the bitter tears dropped down and rolled 


Thusie's Fourth of fuly. 


325 


all over the soiled little cockade that had been so gay 
and patriotic in the early morning. Thusie was a 
child of great common sense. She knew nothing 
could actually harm her in the old church, and dark- 
ness had never for her any of those keen terrors that 
invest it with such horrible dread for other children ; 
but remorse reproached her sorely. 

She said over all her prayers, even those of her ba- 
byhood. And then she watched and waited. It 
seemed to her hours, but, in reality, it was only late bed- 
time through the village ; the lights, one after another, 
went out, and all were peacefully settling for the 
night 

What was that / Surely nothing but a mouse nib- 
bling at the old wood-work. Again. That was no 
mousie ! Thusie would have said she smelt some- 
thing burning, only she must have been dreaming. 
She pinched herself to keep awake. But no ! there 
certainly was a little flame of fire shooting up its de- 
termined tongue right there on the very roof of the 
porch. Locked up in an old church, with the fire 
that had somehow caught from the fireworks and been 
smouldering, until now it had broken out ! All the 
people at home and in bed ! 

Thusie knew enough to realize that the old weath- 
er-beaten structure could never withstand the test, 


326 Thusi^s Fourth of July. 

If she could only ring the old bell ! But Joe always 
put up the ladder and secured it by a hook when he 
finished ringing. She rattled the window; she 
screamed ; she crawled to the door and tried with all 
her might — which was quite considerable now — to 
shake it ; anything to make a noise. 

She could see the fire slowly growing bigger. 
What was one flame had now become two, with a swift 
increasing velocity that threatened the whole building. 

“ t )h, dear ! I wanted fireworks, and now I have got 
them,” moaned Thusie. 

Still the awful crackling as the dry timbers took 
fire, and the smoke began to come in through the big 
cracks. She flung herself down on the floor; she 
could not look up any more. 

“ Fire ! fire / The church is on fire I ” in what 
seemed to Thusie the voice of an angel, rang through 
the stillness. 

It was Farmer Brown going home late in his wagon. 
The old church porch was wreathed in flames when 
his first wild cry rang over the startled village. 

Thusie rushed back to the window. She felt the 
hot rush of the flames pushing in at the cracks and 
the rickety window. The light of the bright fire fell 
upon her white dress, whiter face, and disordered 
hair, making a strange picture ; but she was not dis- 


She crawled to the door and tried with all her might to shake it. 







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Thusie's Fourth of July. 3^9 

covered yet by the excited crowds At last Job Saw- 
yer, a stalwart rough blacksmith, but with a heart ten- 
der as a child’s, cried out : 

“ Why ! there’s a little gal up there 1 ” 

All eyes were turned then up to the window, and a 
second’s pause fell upon them all. Then Job sprang 
upon another man’s shoulder, swung himself up to 
the railing, and with one blow from his powerful fist 
shattered the window to fragments. He grasped 
Thusie, passed her to the trembling crowd below. 
Thusie heard the voices about her as in a dream. 

“ Why, it’s little Thusie Bassett ! ” 

“ Sakes alive ! how did it happen ? ” 

“ What if it had been my Jane ! ” 

“ Where’s her mother? ” 

She only knew she was in her father’s arms — safe 
now ! And she knew no more until in her own dear 
home she came to herself with a great gasp ; and 
there she was, looking into the blessed face of her 
mother. And six simple little words w'ere on her lips, 
unuttered, involuntary, but never forgotten, never an- 
nulled : I will always mind my mother T' 


BOBBY’S SHIRTS. 


“1\ /Pother, mother called a complaining 
voice from the top of the stairs; and pleas- 
ant little Mrs. Nash left the rosy bacon and golden 
eggs she was frying, and going to the stairway door, 
answered : 

“ What is wanted, Bobby ? ” 

“A 

“ You don’t mean to say, Robert Nash, that your 
shirt is missing again? ” And Mrs. Nash, in her ex- 
citement, threw up her hands, and the fork she had 
been using dropped and the tines stuck up in the 
floor. 

Charlotte left the steaming, mealy potatoes she 
was peeling and ran to the stairway door. Harriet 
came also with the loaf of bread in her hands. Sa- 
rah joined the group with a dish of pickles ; while 

330 


Bobhy^s Shirts. 


331 


Mary, appearing on the scene with a plate of cheese, 
was confronted by Martha with a plate of butter, and 
Emeline with a pumpkin pie. 

“What’s up? ’’cried Captain Nash, entering the 
kitchen with a pail in each hand. “ Where are the 
wimmin folks? The house is full of smoke. The 
cat’s on the breakfast table with her head in the milk 
pitcher, — s-c-cat 1 you cat. The dog is at the cheese- 
curd, — git out, Lion ! git out, sir ! A hen and chicken 
in the bread-tray, — sho, sho, sho / ” ^ 

The six girls scattered as their father came up say- 
ing: 

“ Ain’t that boy up yit ? There’s no tellin’ what 
mischief the cows will git into. I turned ’em out 
more’n an hour ago. Come, come, boy ! git up.” 

“ I w’ould have been up,” whined Bobby from the 
room above, “but I hadn’t any shirt to put on.” 

The captain’s bearded chin dropped as these 
words came floating down the little dark back stair- 
way. 

“ He shall stay in bed with nothin’ ter eat till he 
owns up about them shirts ! He’s plannin’ ter run 
away to sea or somewhere, an’ he means ter have 
shirts ’nough ter last him a three years v’y’ge ; but 
I’ll starve it out on him ! ” 

“ He will have to lie in bed anyway,” sighed Mrs, 


332 


Bobby s Shirts. 


Nash, “for he has nothing in the world to put on, 
and there must be a shirt made for him, and com- 
pany coming, too,” and she pulled the tines out of 
the clean white floor. 

“ I should think there might be sumthin’ mustered 
up for that boy to put on for a shirt,” said the cap- 
tain. 

“ His shirts are all gone again, father,” said Char- 
lotte, the eldest, “and there’s no use scolding or 
whipping him, for that don't bring them back.” 

“ Gone ! ” put in Harriet, “ I should think so. Old 
ones and new ones, flannel ones and cotton ones, fine 
ones and coarse ones ; and all father’s old ones, as 
well as my two white sacques and Sarah’s short night 
gowns, and every other garment that belonged to any 
one of us that could be made to do duty as a shirt.” 

“/believe,” said the more practical sister Martha, 
“ that he sells them for peanuts or candy, or some- 
thing of that sort.” 

“ Nonsense,” bridled up Emeline. “ Bobby is no 
such kind of a boy \ he is just doing it for fun, and 
of course the missing garments must be in the house 
somewhere. I intend to take another good look, and 
find them this time, if I have to overhaul the back- 
chamber and garret,” and away she ran up-stairs and 
into her brother’s room, 


Bobby's Shirts. 


33 .^ 


“ Now, bub,^’ said the good-natured sister pleas- 
antly, “if you will tell me where you have hid all 
those shirts, I will bring you up a nice breakfast un- 
beknown to any of the folks.” 

“ I dunno,” whimpered poor Bobby. “ I hope to 
die if I do.” 

“ I don’t believe he does know,” thought Emeline. 
“ Bobby is a conscientious boy and he never would 
have said ‘ hope to die ’ if he had hid them shirts or 
sold them for peanuts and candy.” So she drew 
from beneath her apron an egg and ham sandwich 
done up in a paper, and handing it to Bobby left the 
room without a word. 

The hungry boy barely had time to make way with 
the welcome offering when he again heard steps upon 
the stairs. He curled his bare arms and shoulders 
under the bed-clothes and peered out disconsolately. 
It was Charlotte this time. 

“ Now if you will tell me without any teasing, bub, 
where all your shirts are, I will bring you up a lunch.” 

“ I dunno, no more’n the dead, sissy,” and Bobby 
began to cry as he added emphasis to pathos. “ I 
hope to die and choke to death if I do.” 

“ Dear me, how you do talk,” said Charlotte, and 
hearing the stair-way door open she slid a handful 
of cookies and a slice of gingerbread under her broth- 


334 


Bobby's Shirts. 


er’s pillow, and slipped out into the shed chamber 
just as Sarah appeared in the little room. 

“ Now, Bobby,” she began — 

“ Don’t you ask me another word about them 
plaguey old shirts,” shouted the now thoroughly irate 
lad. “ I hope to die and choke to death, and never 
breathe another breath, if I know what has become of 
them ; and I should think I had said so times enough. 
And if you want to see me starve to death right be- 
fore your eyes, all right ; but I don’t think 1 should 
allow one of my sisters to be treated in this way.” 

This appeal was so pathetic that the sedate Sarah 
brought forth from the folds of her dress a mince 
turnover and a generous cube of sage cheese. 

“ Good for you ! ” cried Bobby, seizing with alac- 
rity his favorite viands ; while Sarah meeting Mary in 
the hall told her that she began to believe with old 
mother Whipple that Bobby was bewitched. 

The girls, each in turn, had carried up a dainty 
lunch to their only and much petted brother, now in 
durance vile ; but for all that the forenoon dragged 
for the always active boy, and he sat up in bed and 
listened eagerly as, about noon, there floated up to 
him from the front of the house the little bustle of 
an arrival. Presently, one of the girls put her head 
in the door of his room to say that it was Aunt Louisa 





He sat uf in bed and listened eagerly. 



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Bobby's Shirts. 


337 


and the twins, Jared and Jason, and that they came 
in the Westford stage. 

“Where is Bobby?” demanded the two somewhat 
uproarious boys. Their cheery voices rang through 
the capacious and substantial farmhouse, even to the 
little ell-room and bed wherein was curled the culprit, 
just now in a fearful state of impatience, while below, 
his mother and sisters were explaining the condition 
of affairs to the visitors. 

“ I suppose the twins can go up and see him,” said 
Mrs. Nash, “ but he can’t get up just yet. Sarah has 
been to the store with some eggs and bought some 
cotton cloth, and Eraeline has cut out a shirt, and the 
girls have all lent a hand as each had a spare mo- 
ment, but it is not ready to put on.” 

“ My boys have got shirts enough,” said consider- 
ate Aunt Jyouisa, unlocking her big trunk ; and soon 
Jared and Jason were mounting the stairs, two steps 
at a time, shouting each jump as only wide awake 
boys can. 

“ The poor boy will be glad to get up to dinner,” 
said his mother. “ He must be hungry enough by 
this time.” 

“ Haven’t you had anything to eat to-day? ” asked 
Jared, eyeing Bobby curiously as he emerged from 
the bed and drew the neat little snow-white shirt over 


Bobby's Shirts. 


338 

his head. Bobby laughed, put his finger on his lips, 
then raised one of the fluffy white pillows, disclosing 
under it, between the folds of a newspaper, the remains 
of his lunch. 

“ They’ve all brought me a bite except mother, and 
she would have been glad to only she wouldn’t dare 
to disobey father. I ’spose she’s dreadfully worried 
for fear I am hungry.” 

Here the dinner-bell rang. The advent of the 
aunt and cousins operated towards the enlargement 
of the prisoner, of course ; and it only needed the 
gracious assent of Captain Nash to cause the appear- 
ance of his little son at the table. Bobby partook 
so very sparingly that his mother thought he must be 
ill; but his antics with his cousins "reassured the ten- 
der-hearted little woman, as they left the good far- 
mer’s generous table and ran capering off to the big 
barns. 

“Now, cousin Bobby,” said Jared, “tell us about 
your shirts. Are you really saving them up to take 
with you when you run away ; and where are you go- 
ing? Tell us. won’t you ? ” 

“ I ain’t a-going to run away,” cried Bobby in a 
fretful tone, provoked as he could be that the dreaded 
subject must be thrust upon him even by his visitors. 
“ I hain’t no idea of runnin’ away and I never had ; 


Bobby's Shirts. 


339 


and I hope to die and be shot and scalped and 
skinned and drowned and have hot lead poured in 
my ears, if I know where them old duds are. And 
now I hope y will believe what I say and not talk 



Sarah, meeting Mary in the hall. 


no more about them shirts / ” And Bobby turned a 
, neat somerset on the hay-mow, and astonished the 
twins by jumping off upon the clover bay below. 

“ Is there any good place to go in swimming around 


Bobby's Shirts. 


V^340 

here ? ” queried the cousins, when Bobby appeared at 
the top of the long ladder, which was made by pins 
inserted in the post. 

“ Oh, heaps of them ; but our folks are so afraid 1 
shall go near them that they make themselves miser- 
able all the time. I don’t s’pose you’ll believe me 
when I tell you that I’ve never been in swimming in 
my life. O, don’t I wish I could once ! I would 
dive and swim like this." And, putting the palms of 
his hands together above his head, with an Indian 
whoop he plunged again down from the great beams 
upon the fresh, loose clover, where he kicked 
and squirmed and went through all the motions of 
swimming. 

“ Come on, boys, and see how cool and fresh the 
water feels. I’m the great American champion swim- 
mer and diver and floater ! I can float, strike out, 
dog-paddle, and swim under water ! Come on, I 
say.” 

“ There he is again,” said Emeline to her Aunt Lou- 
isa. They had entered the broad, cleanly swept 
barn floor just in time to witness this last perfo«n- 
ance. “ He is bewitched, too, on the subject of swim- 
ming. He reads everything he can find about swin^ 
mers and divers, and is perfectly wild ^out the wa- 
ter. If he was not such a remarkably obedient boy 


Bobby's Shirts. 


341 

we should be in a constan^ terror lest he should be 
drowned. But father has positively forbidden his go- 
ing into the water, and Bobby would never think of 
breaking one of father’s rules.” 

“ I tell you, Aunt Louisa, a boy with six sisters, all 
older than he is, is an object of pity anyway,” said 
Bobby, landing in a flying leap from some unexpected- 
■ quarter and turning another of his remarkable som- 
ersets on the barn floor, to the delight of the twins 
and the consternation of his sister. 

“ If I start off fishin’,” went on Bobby, “ I’m or- 
dered not to go near the water ; if I want to go hunt- 
ing they hide father’s gun and ammunition ; if I jump 
they cry out I shall be lamed ; if I want to take a 
ride they implore father to keep the horse in the 
barn. I might as well be a wax doll and done with 
it for all the fun I’m allowed to have. I can’t really 
do anything-: — I have to make believe ! So come on 
and see my cannon,” and with a shout the three boys 
disappeared in the orchard. 

^The cannon proved to be a huge log, from which 
the bark had been peeled long before so that it was 
pleached to a snowy whiteness. Half of its length 
was hollow. Bobby drew a long walnut pole from its 
hiding-plac? beneath the log. 

“ This is the great revolving Gattling gun,” said he, 


342 


Bohhfs Shirts. 


“ See me load her now. This is my ram-rod,” and 
he went through his manual of artillery loading and 
firing, the twins lustily shouting '■^hang^^ when he 
pulled the cord he had affixed to the make-believe 
hammer, and thinking it fine fun. 

“ This old log might be loaded and split with real 
powder,” said Bobby. “ It would make a tremendous 
noise, but, oh, dear me ! the girls would have a fit at. 
the bare mention of it. I tell you what it is, boys, it’s 
pretty hard on a feller to have to be used as well as I 
am. The fact is, I am just killed with kindness. I 
know it’s nice to have sisters to fix you up and curl 
your hair and help you get your lessons and to take 
you visiting and tell just how to be nice and sweet 
and pretty, but a boy must have some boy’s fun.^^ 

When night came, the three lads teased so hard to 
be allowed to share the Same room that Mrs. Nash 
made up Bobby’s bed as nice as she could, with two 
extra blankets and pillows, and, at an early hour, 
tired out with their afternoon’s frolic, they went to 
bed. 

About midnight, Bobby astonished his cousins by 
getting out of bed and opening one of the chamber 
windows. 

“What’s up?” drowsily asked Jason, rousing up 
and turning over with a groan. 


Bobby s Shirts, 


343 


“ Hush ! ” whispered Jared, getting out of bed in 
his turn. “ Don’t you see he’s asleep ? Look at his 



Let's see what he will do. 


Staring eyes. Let’s see what he will do.” 

The moon was at its full and was shining directly 
into the room, so that the boys could see almost as 
well as in broad daylight. Bobby deliberately got 
out of the open window upon the flat roof of the ell, 
crossed it, swung himself into the limbs of an apple- 
tree in near proximity, and from them descended to 
the ground. 

“ What one boy has done another boy may do, al- 


344 


Bobby's Shirts, 


though the first boy is asleep and insensible to dan- 
ger,” whispered Jared, as, followed closely by Jason, 
he slipped quickly to the ground. “ Come on ! ” And 
away the three white-robed figures sped in the sultry 
ni^it. 

Well, Bobby gave his pursuers quite a race. 
Through the garden, the orchard, and a strip^ of 
meadow, along beside an old stone fence, in the 
shadow of a wood, until he came upon that very^ame 
log, the “ Revolving Gattling gun ” of the afternoon. 

Bobby paused beside the old bleached log lying so 
still and glistening in the bright moonlight, stripped 
his borrowed shirt off over his head, rolled it carefully 
into a wad, then, putting it into the opening of the 
hollow part of the log, he pounded it snugly home 
with the long walnut ‘ ram-rod’, which he very cau- 
tiously replaced under the fringe of high grass be- 
neath the log. He then went through all the motions 
of firing the ‘ gun’, after which he climbed upon the 
top of the log, and walking to the highest end, plac- 
ing his hands above his curly head, palms together, 
he leaped off down into the heavy, dewy grass, and 
went sprawling about after the fashion of the after- 
noon performance, — “ swimming under water,” the 
poor boy ploughed his head along in the grass ; 
and swimming “dog-paddle,” he turned upon his 


Bobby's Shirts, 


345 


side and kicked and pulled himself on in the direction 
of the farm-house. His strength, doubtless, now al- 
most exhausted, he rose and retraced his steps to 
the garden. Regaining the roof by the same means 
as he descended from it, he quickly ran across it, scram- 
bled into the window and immediately curled down 
between the sheets, the twins close upon his heels 
at all points. 

Ja^d and Jason had arranged their plans for the 
morrow as they were following Bobby through the 
meadow ; and soon the trio were fast asleep. 

The twins were awakened in the early morning by 
Bobby cheerily shouting : 

“ Hello, bo3^s, your shirt ’s gone slick and clean ! ” 

His look of utter bewilderment was so funny to 
see that the twins could not help laughing immoder- 
ately. The folks below, who were also astir early that 
morning, came trooping up to the boys’ room in an- 
swer to Jared’s lusty calls. Bobby’s mother looked 
grave, Martha and Sarah cried ; but Aunt Louisa 
presently brought another shirt, and then the three 
boys were soon in hot pursuit of the cows that had 
broken into an adjacent corn-field. 

Breakfast over, there was a great deal of- confiden- 
tial talk between the twins and their mother on the 
front piazza, followed by her going out to the barns 


34 ^ 


Bobby's Shirts. 


where her brother was still at his chores and begging 
him to allow the boys to split open that big log with 
“ real powder.” 

“I’ve been thinkin’ of havin’ it done for some 
time,” said the farmer. “ There’s a cord o’ wood in 
that log at the least calculation. But I haven’t the 
time to see to it myself, and I don’t want to trust the 
boys at the business; but if they can get Dennis 
Gould to help them and see that they ain’t careless 
with the powder, I don’t care.” 

So the boys ran off to the village and soon returned 
with Dennis, with a w'hole wheelbarrow load of au- 
gurs, beetles, wedges, axes, screws, and a quantity of 
blasting powder and fuse. It was nearly dinner-time 
before the charges were loaded ready to fire off. 

The family were invited to come down and stand 
on the sand knoll under the big hemlock, at a safe 
distance from the log, and see it “touched off.” 
The pieces of fuse were lighted, and then the boys 
and Dennis ran as fast as they could and joined the 
little group on the knoll. The fire flashed and 
smoked and sputtered, but made steady progress. 
When the fire reached the charges, there was a pause 
for a few seconds ; then there was a grand explo- 
sion, the huge log rising up in the air, whipping over, 
and falling back clove straight through in two piec- 


347 


Bobby's Shirts. 

es. How they all scampered down to them — the 
girls as well as the boys ! And how they all won- 
dered and exclaimed when they saw Bobby’s multitu- 
dinous shirts lying about in little mildewed wads ! 

Bobby was as much surprised as anyone, you may 
be sure, and listened with open mouth and staring 
eyes when Jared and Jason related the story of his 
midnight exploit. 

“ Now, girls,” said Aunt Louisa, “ I hope this will 
be a lesson to you, and teach you that a boy will 
never grow up to be a strong, healthy, fearless, use- 
ful, manly man unless he is allowed to indulge moder- 
ately in innocent boyish sports.” 

Well, the girls did realize that their pet brother had, 
all this time, been in much greater danger from his 
sleep-walking than he would have been had he been 
suffered to learn to swim and indulge in other recrea- 
tions with his mates in the day time. 

And, truly, never again was Bobby known to walk 
and “ carry on ” in his sleep, after he was allowed to 
have some “ real fun ” instead of “ make-believe.’' 


AN UNINVITED GUEST. 


W HEN Col. Frank Johnson and his two sons 
settled on the banks of Pleasant Creek and 
commenced sawing lumber with the newly invented 
gang-saw, it was a perfect wilderness. Their hut of 
logs was erected on a slight hill overlooking the stream 
on which their rough mill was situated, and these two 
structures were fully ten miles from any habitation. 
One who looks to-day upon the pretty little town of 
Johnsonville can hardly realize that its origin was of 
so recent a date. 

Great trees wooded the banks of the creek, through 
which a path had been cut from the house to the mill, 
the track of which to-day bears the name, “ Toni's 
Avenue^'' so called by the old man in admiration of 
his son Thomas, who was the hero of the story I am 
now telling. 


348 


An Uninvited Guest. 


349 


The mill was in constant operation, night and day, 
with one or the other of the three, and sometimes 
two of them, to watch the process of sawing ; all of 
them being required when the sawing of one log was 
completed to put in another. When two had the 
watch by night, one would lie down under blankets 
brought from the house, to be called when wanted by 
the other. In summer it was a luxury to break off 
the spruce boughs and make a bed of them, and the 
boys, who were sixteen and eighteen years old, en- 
joyed this wild life very much. 

Their mother being dead, they had to do their own 
cooking and mending, and were very handy house- 
keepers. They were handy also with the ^un and 
fishing rod, and the woods were full of deer and other 
game, and the creek with fish. They lived Tike 
princes on what they procured in this way. It was 
fun for them to range the woods and fish in the stream, 
and they would take turns to watch the saw while one 
went hunting, or, at times, they would both go to- 
gether, leaving their father at the mill. 

One day they went further into the forest than usual 
in search of game, when they were startled by the 
breaking of branches, and a huge bear came out of a 
little opening and stood on his hind legs before them, 
looking very inquiringly as to • what their errand was. 


350 


A 71 Uninvited Guest. 


They did not stop to tell him, but scampered off as 
fast as possible, without letting the grass grow under 
their feet. When they found that the bear was not 
following them, Dick, the older, expressed himself 
very sorry that he had not fired at the brute, but Tom 
thought they had done better to retreat ; saying, that 
while bear venison was very good upon a table, it 
didn’t seem so attractive to him in its raw condition. 
This was the first bear they had seen, but their father 
told them there was a hare possibility of their seeing 
more sometime. 

They were rather on the lookout for bears after this 
fearing lest some trouble might be brum ; but they 
kept away, and soon the boys thought nothing about 
them. And they went on pretty much as they had 
done, sawing out lots of lumber, which purchasers 
from below made rafts of and run down the creek to 
its junction with the great river. The saw employed 
was, as I have said, the new gang-saw, which made a 
whole log into boards at one time. When the saw 
was running, some portion of the machinery was ap- 
plied to drawing the log through as fast as it was 
sawed. 

One night the saw had commenced busily running 
through a large log, with Tom on the watch. Dick 
had lain down under' his blankets, and their father 


An Unmvited Guest. 


351 


was at the house awaiting a summons to help “jerk a 
new log.” It was very still outside, and the ruddy 
light from pitch faggots, that burned on a great 
stone, shone through the open sides of the mill and 
lighted up the forest all around. It was a weary 
watch for Tom, though he had become accustomed 
to it, and he beat his feet upon the floor and warmed 
himself at the fire when he felt cold until eleven 
o’clock had arrived, as he judged by the stars. Dick 
was to be awakened at midnight, and his father was 
to be called soon after, so to keep up his spirits he 
took the lunch he had brought to the mill, which was 
placed in a side nook, and, seating himself on the 
log which, was slowly being sawed, he spread his re- 
past out and began to eat it. 

He had scarcely made w'ay with one mouthful, 
when he heard a sound which caused him to suspend 
the second one, and wait with open mouth, eyes and 
ears, to have the sound repeated. He could not 
make out the nature of it or where it came from. It 
seemed a sort of growl or snort, and amidst the noise 
the saw was making, it was not possible to determine 
its character. It might have been Dick snoring as he 
lay hidden by the blankets, so he stopped eating and 
listened. Very soon the sound was repeated, nearer 
and louder than before, and this time leaving Tom in 


353 


An Uninvited Guest. 


no doubt regarding it. He looked in the direction 
from whence the noise came, and there, showing 
plainly in the light which flashed out upon him, was 
a huge black bear, his eyes glowing, and showing an 
evident intention of coming in without an invitation. 

Tom did riot long hesitate what to do. His descent 
from the log was a remarkably speedy movement, and 
forgetting his brother Dick, who lay in blessed uncon- 
sciousness, he darted for the opening the opposite of 
that by which the bear was entering, expecting a 
vigorous race. A few moments after, as he ran, he 
thought of Dick, and without considering his own 
weakness in the event of an encounter with the enemy, 
he turned back. The bear had either not commenced 
the pursuit, or had given it up, and Tom feared that 
he might have found poor Dick and be even then 
making a meal of him. Returning toward the mill, 
and keeping behind the trees as he went, he at last 
got to a place where he could see the whole interior 
and there, to his astonishment, was the bear seated 
on the log making free with his supper, while Dick lay 
still snoozing undisturbed. 

The bear rather prolonged his meal, as if he relished 
it, while the log was travelling toward the saw. The 
animal’s face was turned from it, and, as he finished 
the last crumb, he swayed his body from side to side 







IN HAPPY UNCONSCIOUSNESS. 


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An Uninvited truest. 


355 

with a show of satisfaction, and arose upon his hind 
legs as if he were about to dance. At that moment 
the saw struck him from behind, whereupon he turned 
with a howl of pain which brought Dick to his feet, 
and, throwing his arms about the traversing saw, in a 
moment he was dead, his blood smearing the log on 
which he lay. 

Tom rushed in just as Dick rushed out. They 
met furiously in the doorway, each throwing the other 
down, and each cried out “ Help ! ’’ as loud as he 
could. Their father heard the sound at the house, 
and in a moment they heard his feet in the lane. He 
reached them almost as soon as they had recovered 
their feet. 

“ Well, boys, what’s the matter ? ” said he. 

“Matter!” cried Tom, “just look in there I I’ve 
sawed a big brute of a bear all up into venison 
stakes ! ” 

Mr. Johnson and his boys hurried in — and there was 
the monster most happily cut up for use ; and the old 
man complimented his boy on the neatness of his 
execution^ which would bear admiring scrutiny as a 
work of art ; indeed, a better he never saw. 

Such is the story that was told to me while sojourn- 
ing in the village of Johnsonville, and Esquire John- 
son, now president of the bank, and last year repre- 


An Uninvited Guest, 


356 

sentative of the General Court, was pointed out to me 
as the identical Tom who served up the bear. Dick 
was running a woolen mill up in New Hampshire,, a 
prosperous and worthy citizen. 

Note hy the Author. The foregoing sketch maybe relied 
on, because I have seen the ruins of the old mill where the main 
transaction is supposed to have occurred; similar in logic to 
Mark T ^vain’s testimony regarding the residence of Mary of 
ATagdala — he knew the Scriptural account of it was true, be- 
cause the house was right there before his eyes. I am informed 
by the Editor of The Wide Awake that an account of a 
similar circumstance among the “ first settlers ” was published 
long ago. I never saw it, but if it was, it but corroborates the 
possibility of this of mine, with this difference — that, happening 
at so verv early a day, was before gang-saws were known, and 
therefore the bear was simply sawn in two ; whereas, in my 
story the superior genius is shown in sawing the bear into veni- 
<=011 “stakes ” by means of the newer invention. 


CAPT. JAMES B. EADS. 


L ast December, on the steamship “ Germanic, 
I played chess with the great civil engineer. 
Captain Eads, stimulated by the thought that to beat 
him was to defeat the man who had- twice conquered 
the Mississippi. But I didn’t defeat him. 

The building of a ship-canal across the Isthmus of 
Suez, made fampus the.. Frenchman, Ferdinand de 
Lesseps. So the opening up of the mouth of the 
Mississippi river has distinguished Qaptain Eads. 
To-day both these men - are ; struggling for the rare 
honor of joining at the Isthmus of Panama, the 
waters of the great Atlantic and Pacific ; a mag- 
nificent scheme, which if successful, will save an- 
nually thousands of miles of dangerous' sea voyage 
around Cape Horn, besides millions of money. 

The “ Great West ” seems to delight in producing 

357 


158 


Capt. James B. Eads. 


self-made men like Lincoln, Grant, Eads and 
others. 

James B. Eads was born in Indiana in 1820. He 
is slender in form, neat in dress, genial, courteous, 
and nearly sixty years of age. In 1833 his father 
started down the Ohio river with his family, pro- 
posing to settle in Wisconsin. The boat caught 
fire and his scanty furniture and clothing were 
burned. Young Eads barely escaped ashore with 
his pantaloons, shirt and cap. Taking passage on 
another boat, this boy of thirteen landed at St. 
Louis with his parents, his little bare feet first touch- 
ing the rocky shore of the city on the very spot 
where he afterwards located and built the largest 
steel bridge in the world, over the Mississippi — one 
of the most difficult feats of engineering ever per- 
formed in America. 

At the age of nine, young Eads made a short trip 
on the Ohio, when the engineer of the steamboat 
explained to him so clearly the construction of the 
steam engine that before he was a year older he 
built a little working model of it, so perfect in its 
parts and movements, that his schoolmates would 
frequently go home with him after school to see it 
work. A locomotive engine, driven by a concealed 
rat, was one of his next juvenile feats in mechanical 


Capt. yames B. Eads. 


359 


engineering. From eight to thirteen he attended 
school ; after which from necessity he was placed as 
clerk in a dry goods store. 

How few young people of the many to whom pov- 
erty denies an education, either understand the value 
of the saying, knowledge is power,’’ or exercise will 
sufficient to overcome obstacles. Will-power and 
thirst for knowledge elevated General Garfield from 
driving canal horses to the Senate of the United 
States. 

Over the store in St. Louis, where he was en- 
gaged, his employer lived. He was an old bachelor, 
and having observed the tastes of his clerk, gave 
him his first book on engineering. The old gentle- 
man’s library furnished evening companions for him 
during the five years he was thus employed. Finally, 
his health failing, at the age of nineteen, he went on 
a Mississippi river steamer ; from which time to the 
present day, that great river has been to him an all- 
absorbing study. 

Soon afterwards he formed a partnership with a 
friend and built a small boat to raise cargoes of ves- 
^ sels sunken in the Mississippi. While this boat was 
^ building, he made his first venture in submarine en- 
gineering, on the lower rapids of the river, by the 
recovery of several hundred tons of lead. He hired 


360 Capt. yames B. Eads. 

a scow or flat-boat and anchored it over the wreck. 
An experienced diver, clad in armor, *who had been 
hired at considerable expense in Buffalo, was lowered 
into the water ; but the rapids were so swift that the 
diver, though encased in the strong armor, feared to 
be sunk to the bottom. Young Eads, determined to 
succeed, and finding it impracticable to use the 
armor, went ashore, purchased a whiskey barrel, 
knocked out the head, attached the air-pump hose to 
it, fastened several heavy weights to the open end 
of the barrel — then swinging it on a derrick he had 
a practical diving bell ; the best use I ever heard 
made of a whiskey barrel. 

Neither the diver, nor any of the crew, would go 
down in this contrivance, so the dauntless young en- 
gineer, having full confidence in what he had read in 
books, was lowered within the barrel down to the 
bottom ; the lower end of the barrel bping open. 
The water was sixteen feet deep, and very swift. 
Finding the wreck he remained by it a full hour, 
hitching ropes to pig lead till a ton or more was 
safely hoisted into his own boat. Then making a 
signal by a small line attached to the barrel, he was 
lifted on deck and in command again. The sunken^ 
cargo was soon successfully raised and was sold, and 
netted a handsome profit which, increased by other 


Capt. yames B. Eads. 


361 

successes, enabled energetic Eads to build larger 
boats with powerful pumps and machinery on them 
for lifting entire vessels. He surprised all his 
friends in floating even immense sunken steamers 
— boats which had long been given up as lost. 

When the Rebellion came, it was soon evident 
that a strong fleet must be put upon Western rivers 
to assist our armies. Word came from the Govern- 
ment to Captain Eads to report in Washington. 
His thorough knowledge of the “ Father of Waters ” 
and its tributaries, and his practical suggestions, se- 
cured an order to build seven gunboats, and soon 
after an order for the eighth was given. 

In forty-eight hours after receiving this authority, 
his agents and assistants were at work, and suitable 
ship timber was felled in half a dozen Western states 
for their hulls. Contracts were awarded to large 
engine and iron works in St. Louis, Pittsburgh and 
Cincinnati j and within one hundred days, eight 
powerful iron-clad gun-boats, carrying over one 
hundred large cannon and costing a million dol- 
lars, were achieving victories no less important for 
the Mississippi valley than those which Ericsson’s 
® famous “Cheese-box Monitor” afterwards won on 
the James river. 

These eight gun boats. Commodore Foote ably 


362 


Capt. yames B. Eads. 


employed in his brave attacks on Forts McHenry 
and Donaldson. They were the first iron-clads 
the United States ever owned. Captain Eads cov- 
ered the boats with iron. Commodore Foote covered 
them with glory. 

Eads built not less than fourteen of these gun- 
boats. During the war, the models were exhibited 
by request to the German and other Governments. 
His next work was to throw across the mighty Miss- 
issippi River, nearly half a mile wide, at St. Louis, a 
monstrous steel bridge, supported by three arches, 
the spans of two being 502 feet long and the central 
one 520 feet. The huge piles were ingeniously sunk 
in the treacherous sand, one hundred and thirty-six 
feet below the flood level to the solid rock, through 
ninety feet of sand. This bridge and its approaches 
cost eighty millions of dollars and is used by ten or 
twelve railroad companies. Above the tracks is a 
big street with carriage roads, street cars and walks 
for foot passengers. 

The honor of building the finest bridge in the 
world would have satisfied most men, but not ambi- 
tious Captain Eads. He actually loved the noble 
river in which De Soto its discoverer was buried, anc^ 
fully realized the vast, undeveloped resources of its 
rich valleys. Equally well he understood what a 



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CAPT. JAMES B. EADS. 



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Capt. James B. Eads. 


365 


gigantic work in the past the river and its 1500 siza- 
ble tributaries had accomplished in times of freshets, 
by depositing soil and sand north of the original 
Gulf of Mexico, forming an alluvial plain 500 miles 
long, 60 miles wide and of unknown depth, and hav- 
ing a delta extending out into the Gulf, 60 miles long 
and as many miles wide and probably a mile deep. 
And yet this heroic man, although jealously opposed 
for years by West Point engineers, having a sublime 
confidence in the laws of nature, and actuated by in- 
tense desire to benefit mankind, dared to stand on 
the immense sand-bars at the mouth of this defiant 
stream and, making use of the jetty system, bid the 
river itself dig a wide, deep channel into the seas 
beyond, for the world’s commerce. 

Captain Eads, who had studied the improvements 
on the Danube, Maas and other European rivers, 
observed that all rivers flow faster in their narrow 
channels and carry along in the swift water, sand, 
gravel and even stones. This familiar law he ap- 
plied at the South Pass of the Mississippi River, 
where the waters, though deep above, escaped from 
the banks into the gulf, and spread sediment far and 
wide. 

The water on the sand-bars of the three principal 
passes varied from eight to thirteen feet in depth. 


1 


-^66 Capt. yames B. Eads. 

Many vessels require twice the depth. Two piers, 
1200 feet apart, were built from lands’ end a 
mile into the sea. They were made from willows, 
timber, gravel, concrete and stone. Mattresses, loo 
feet long, from 25 to 50 feet wide, and two feet thick 
were constructed from small willows placed at right 
angles and bound securely together. These were 
floated into position and sunk with gravel, one mat- 
tress upon another, which the river soon filled with 
sand that firmly held them in their place. The top 
was finished with heavy concrete blocks, to resist the 
waves. These piers are called jetties and the swift 
collected waters have already carried over five mill- 
ion cubic yards of sand into the deep gulf, and made a 
ship-way over thirty feet deep. The $5,000,000 paid 
by the United States was little enough for so price- 
less a service. 




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